The Railway Giant

The Railway Giant is a Mountain Grey Gum, situated between the railway line and Francis Ave in Drouin, at the ‘elbow’, where Francis Ave swings from north-south to east-west. This leviathan reaches about 30m in height, has a canopy spread of at least 20m and a girth of 7.75m at chest height!

 

The Railway Giant would have to be something like 300 years old and one wonders what stories it could tell – climate change, First Nations People, white settlement of Drouin, the first train…?

 

Apart from the size of the tree, the most useful evidence of the age of the Railway Giant is the number and size of the hollows contained within its trunk and branches. It is generally accepted that most eucalypts begin to form hollows after about 100 years. There is a whole field of study that involves estimating the age of a tree by the hollows it contains.

 

Because there are hundreds of species of native fauna that require tree hollows for their survival, the Railway Giant is extremely valuable as a habitat tree. Possums, gliders, bats, lizards, frogs, beetles and grubs and of course numerous bird species would all find these hollows valuable for shelter, resting or breeding.

 

The Railway Giant is a much-revered Drouin landmark. In 2018, artist in residence Jo Camaniti, painted the Railway Giant.

 

The Baw Baw Significant Tree Register (LINK), states that a tree is determined suitable for the register because of any one of 12 criteria. The Railway Giant satisfied five criteria – location/landscape context, being particularly old, outstanding size, outstanding form, a remnant tree and high habitat value.

 

Precious!

 

Finding and using the significant tree register

 1 

Enter baw baw significant tree register or similar, into your favourite search engine, usually Google but if you don’t want your search preferences to profile you, try something like DuckDuckGo. Hit enter on your keyboard or Go, on the page, etc.

 

2 

Numerous options will appear. Click on the URL (address) for the register.

 3 

The Council’s page containing details of the register will open. Scroll down to “visit Council's online interactive map to view the location and citation for each significant tree” and click the link.

 4

You will get the map (of Drouin at the present) that contains the trees in green icons. You can navigate to a specific address using the Address search bar in the top right-hand corner. Alternatively, you can hold the cursor on the map and slide it around until you find the street/location you are looking for. In this example, the large gum tree outside 39 Albert Rd has been selected.

 5

The +/- button in the top left-hand corner will enlarge or shrink the map. The Aerial button will change the view to an actual aerial view of the area. When you find the tree, group or row of trees you want, click on the icon and an information panel about the tree will appear. 

6

Click on Citation PDF and a PDF document will open containing photos and details of the citation for that tree – “Bill Kraft Giant, Eucalyptus cypellocarpa …”, etc.

 Hope this helps.