Currency Creek Arboretum

Currency Creek Arboretum

Dean Nicolle
Email dn@dn.com.au

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Summary
Introduction
Research at Currency Creek Arboretum
	Publications
Currency Creek Arboretum Statistics
	Map of collection sites
	Species List
Currency Creek Arboretum open days, tours and consultancy

Summary

Currency Creek Arboretum (CCA) is a specialist eucalypt arboretum ('zoo of trees'), with its main purpose being research into Australia's most dominant natural group of plants, the eucalypts.

Currency Creek Arboretum was established and is managed by Dean Nicolle and is largely self-funded. The arboretum has the largest collection of eucalypt species in the world, with over 950 species and subspecies (and over 10,000 individual plants) having been planted on the site, more than double the number of eucalypt taxa being grown on any other one site elsewhere. Major plantings continue at CCA most years.

Introduction

Currency Creek Arboretum (CCA) is named after the nearby geographical feature and town of Currency Creek in South Australia. Major plantings of eucalypts have taken place most years at CCA since 1993.

All plants growing at CCA have been grown from seed collected from wild populations by D. Nicolle, along with accompanying dried and pressed herbarium specimens of the parent (seed or mother) tree, with specimens mostly housed at herbaria in Adelaide, Canberra and Perth. Other data collected at the time of each seed collection includes GPS locality information and other field recorded individual and site data including associated eucalypt taxa, which help when identifying and isolating hybrid seedling progeny. Eight seedlings of each accession (mother-tree) are grown as part of the CCA project, with four seedlings planted out at CCA and the remainder being pressed and dried as a preserved seedling specimens and housed at AD or PERTH.

A complete voucher is therefore present for every accession grown at CCA. The complete voucher consists of the following material and data:

Herbarium specimen(s) of adult material from the wild mother (seed) tree, including branchlets, adult leaves, flower buds, flowers fruit and seed
Specimen label data (collected from the wild mother tree and site), including habit and bark characteristics, live vegetative and floral characteristics, GPS locality, habitat characteristics, species frequency and associated species
Herbarium specimen(s) of whole seedlings grown from seed collected from the wild mother tree (F1s from the mother tree), including data of all seedling characteristics
The live individual trees growing at CCA from seed collected from the wild mother tree (F1s from the mother tree, and sister trees of the seedling specimens), which include all adult characteristics. Four trees from each mother tree are usually planted at CCA

Unlike many arboreta, multiple plants have been planted out from each seed plant (usually four), giving a more accurate representation of each mother tree’s phenetic and genetic variation. Information on most collections at CCA has been recorded since the projects beginning. Such records include survival, health and growth rates, time to first bud initiation and flowering, and the potential of all collections for various uses.

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Research at Currency Creek Arboretum

Over 120 publications have been published that have acknowledged the use of data and/or the resources of CCA.

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Currency Creek Arboretum Statistics

Currency Creek Arboretum has the following eucalypts, as of February 2024:

Number of individuals planted: 10,143
Number of seed accessions planted (populations from mother trees): 2,644
	Number of known terminal taxa	Number of terminal taxa planted and alive at CCA	Number of terminal taxa flowered at CCA
Eucalyptus (all eucalypts)	1000	952 (95%)	799 (80%)
E. subg. Blakella	40	35 (88%)	15 (38%)
E. subg. Angophora	12	11 (92%)	5 (42%)
E. subg. Corymbia	66	54 (82%)	16 (24%)
E. subg. Eudesmia	28	23 (82%)	17 (61%)
E. subg. Acerosea	2	1	1
E. subg. Cuboidea	1	1	1
E. subg. Idiogenes	4	4	1
E. subg. Eucalyptus	145	138 (95%)	111 (77%)
E. subg. Cruciformes	1	1	1
E. subg. Alveolata	1	1	1
E. subg. Symphyomyrtus	700	683 (98%)	630 (90%)

Map of collection sites

Collection sites of eucalypts growing at Currency Creek Arboretum (Google Earth map)
Click on map to enlarge

List of species planted at Currency Creek Arboretum

Download PDF

The list is sorted alphabetically by taxon (species), then population, then year planted.
The list excludes duplicate accessions and all non-eucalypt accessions growing at CCA.
Taxonomy follows Nicolle (2024) Classification of the eucalypts, genus Eucalyptus. version 7.
Bracketed names are commonly-known or recent synonyms.

February 2024

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Free arboretum open days and guided tours

Free open days are organised occasionally, the dates and times of which will be advertised here. As the site is a private research arboretum, with restricted access, lacking on-site plant labels, and with limited facilities, casual visits by the public are not possible.

Currency Creek Arboretum free open days and guided tours
Sat 29 & Sun 30 March 2025.
For details click here.