The Peppercorn Tree of Madden Grove

The ground this tree stands on was set aside in 1836, before Melbourne had a name worth arguing about. The Survey Paddock, as it was then, became Richmond Park and has been public land ever since, one of the earliest reservations in the city's history, and the peppercorn in Madden Grove is 3.55 metres round and 16 metres tall on that same ground. Schinus molle is South American, from the dry Andean foothills, and it is the tree of colonial Australia more than almost any other import. It went in along stock routes, station tracks, rail sidings and school fences by the thousand, because it took drought, poor soil and neglect without complaint, and its weeping grey-green foliage is now so ordinary in the landscape that people assume it is native. It is not. The City of Yarra's register put this one at over a hundred years old in 2012, which makes it over 110 now, and gave it the fullest set of tags of any tree checked here: particularly old, outstanding size, aesthetic value, and its place in the landscape. A second peppercorn of almost identical girth stands about 200 metres away. Only the register names this individual tree; the heritage listing covers the park around it. Burnley station is about ten minutes' walk, and the river path brings you here from the Yarra Boulevard trees.