Allan Cunningham, (1791-1839) - European Botanist & Explorer

Allan Cunningham's collection of samples at Pine Mountain.

Doctor Gary Bacon wrote

Rare it is to have recorded the actual day, location and collector of the first specimen of a major tree species. Fortunately such definitive records are available for the Brisbane pine known today as Hoop pine. Detailed records are to be found in the journals kept by the Colonial Surveyor-General, John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley and the King's Botanist to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Colonial Botanist, Allan Cunningham.

Dr. Bacon - timeline and circumstances are as follows.

In 1823 Major General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales, sent John Oxley north from Port Jackson in search of a site for an alternative penal settlement. In the process of selecting Redcliffe Point as the intended site, Oxley with Lt Stirling and crew in a whaleboat from the Mermaid journeyed from 2 to 5 December up the Brisbane River in excess of their estimated 50 miles.

Wednesday 3 December 1823: Oxley:

‘Much cypress on larboard shore. Landed and examined the brush. It abounds with noble timber, specimens of two new species. We procured one, a piece of noble dimensions; the other is black, heavy wood of great size. ….. We also discussed that the tree which we had hitherto taken for cypress is this new description of pine, from 100 to 140 feet high.’

In 1824 Oxley and an extended party aboard the Amity returned to establish the Moreton Bay settlement. The official task of extending the previous year’s survey of the Brisbane River was undertaken from 16 to 28 September. The exploration party comprised Oxley, Lt Butler, Allan Cunningham and crew aboard two boats, the barge and whaleboat.

Tuesday September 21 1824: Oxley;

‘We penetrated (on foot !) through a very thick brush abounding with stately and magnificent pines, which towered far above the other timber of the hill, among which was the Flindersia. Mr C(unningham) procured a couple of young cones, which satisfactorily demonstrated that the tree which had excited so much admiration was an entirely new species of the genus Auricaris (Araucaria !) being the first discovered in New South Wales, and decidedly the growth of the interior and not a coast tree. We measured one, the first we came to, the circumference of which was 10 feet. Many others were of greater magnitude, which was carried up perfectly straight without a branch to a height of from 50 to 100 feet, the whole height in the full-grown trees being at least 150 feet. To this stately tree Mr C gave the name of the Brisbane pine.’

Cunningham;

‘Hitherto in our examination of this River, we have been only gratified with a distant view of the Pine; immediately we approached one of magnificent stature, the Monarch of these woods. It was a healthy well-grown Tree, exceeding 120 feet in height with a trunk 3’6” diam., clear of branches exceeding 80 feet. It was totally impossible not to halt a few moments to admire this noble tree which had all the habits of ramification of the Araucaria braziliensis’. 

Cunningham had in fact first sighted and collected his Brisbane pine in June 1819 at Cape Cleveland when exploring and botanising the eastern coast with Cpt Phillip Parker King in the Mermaid. At that time the trees were considered to be Norfolk Island pine (then A exerta, now A heterophylla). Only later when the pressed and fresh specimens had been forwarded by Cunningham to Kew did the taxonomists apply the lasting epithet honouring the first collector.