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It is perhaps one of nature's most unique items--strong, light-weight, resilient, fire-resistant, insulating, capable of absorbing both impact and sound, and durable. Compressed it returns to its original shape, yet it takes to cutting and sanding. It is the bark of the cork oak
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Cork Woodland Showing Freshly Harvested Cork Bark, Corsica
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(Quercus suber Linnaeus).

The cork oak is native to the western Mediterranean. The Greeks called the tree phellos. Among their many uses for cork were theatrical boots, kothornos. The thick cork soles elevated certain actors to stand like Greek gods above the remainder of the company.

Romans called the tree suber. Fishermen made floats of cork to keep their nets from sinking and sailors attached cork to the drag-lines of anchors. Roman ladies wore shoes made of cork to keep their feet warm in winter. A thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire, John Gerard commented "...which use remains with us even to this day...for warmnesse sake."

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Cork from Quercus suber Linnaeus

Cork hives housed honeybees keeping them warmer in winter and cooler in summer. People even built special stone walls with niches, clapiers, to hold the cork hives; a few walls from the Middle Ages still stand in the French countryside.

Cork is at its most familiar as a stopper. It has only been a few centuries since glass bottles and corks have been the standard means of distributing champagne and wine. But cork and wine have been together for centuries. It is a tradition founded on the suitability of cork to protect the wine.

Fitted slightly larger than the inner diameter of the amphora's throat, the cork sealed the wine inside and air and contaminants outside. Wine from the vineyards of Egypt found buyers in Rome, Lebanon, Carthage, and Greece. Even now, the global community of vintners share their wines stoppered with cork. Wine corks alone comprise over a billion equivalent US dollars to the world economy.

(Compiled from: Natural History, Pliny the Elder, translated John F. Healy, 1991; The Herbal, John Gerard, 1633; "Dry Stone in Centre Var", Eric Kalmar; "Overview of Greek Literature by Genre", Classics 1000, Greek Culture, Dr. N. Norman, University of Georgia; "Report 2001-Early Imperial Roman Amphora Stoppers" Ross Thomas, Quseir Al-Qadim Project, University of Southampton; and "All about Cork", Manton Industrial Cork Products)

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Wollemi Pine

National Geographic®

This survivor from the age of the dinosaurs is one of the greatest living fossils discovered in the 20th century. The Wollemi pine is one of the world's oldest and rarest tree species, belonging to a 200-million-year-old plant family thought to have been extinct for more than two million years.

Previously known only from fossil records, it was presumed extinct until a single tree was found in the Wollemi National Park, Australia, in 1994. Subsequent research discovered 100 adult trees that have survived in a single canyon in this wild and rugged area. Click here to view canyon, trees and fossil record.

You can assist in the conservation effort and enjoy the unique opportunity to ensure the continued survival of this rare species by giving the tree as a gift or growing your own. Suitable for indoor container gardening. Can also be used as a landscape tree in USDA hardiness zones 2 through 7, which includes New England, the Midatlantic states, and much of the Midwest.

Comes with a care manual with the full story about the discovery and fascinating history of the Wollemi pine. Tree will be approximately 8"H when shipped. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these plants will fund ongoing conservation research. Click here to get your Wollemi Pine and assist in the conservation effort.

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