The Wishing Tree

A plaque on the trunk explains that this tree will never reach the grandeur of the one it replaced, because a storm damaged its crown soon after it was planted. It is an unusually honest thing for a label to say, and it is accurate. The original Wishing Tree was a Norfolk Island pine set out from a tub around 1816, under Elizabeth Macquarie's eye. By 1905 it was over thirty metres and the most popular tree in the Royal Botanic Garden, with a custom attached: three times around it forwards, three times backwards, and then make your wish. In the 1930s it was found to be dying of old age, and a replacement was bought with money raised by the Farmer's Children's Radio Birthday Club and planted nearby. The original came down in 1945 and its timber was turned into souvenirs, sold to raise funds for returned servicemen. So the tree you will stand in front of, on the harbour side of the garden, is that 1930s replacement. Roughly ninety years old, shortened by one storm early in its life, and still being walked around: visitors were doing their six laps in 2018. Two notes. The spot where the original stood now holds a Wollemi pine, a different tree with a different story. And our pin follows a map node named for the Wishing Tree rather than a surveyed position, so leave room for a short hunt.