Sarah Konoski

What was the most recent new discovery you're aware of for eucalypt?

The fact that that species, one to two metres, and then there are those giant gum trees, you know, how is it?

Is that unusual in botany that there's a species or a genus that has so many diverse species within it of just that range of size?

Yes.

What was happening two, three million years ago?

You mentioned Charles Darwin, Steve.

What did he and other early colonial arrivals on this continent, European arrivals, make of gum trees?

Did they appreciate them the way that we do now?

And what did they make, those Victorian scientists and earlier, about the eucalypts that they were encountering in this continent?

What for?

Why was he wanting to export blue gums and other eucalypt?

They have ended up now growing in countries all over the world.

You know, you see them if you're visiting California or parts of the Middle East or Europe.

But they're not always beloved in other countries.

Why not?

What are the drawbacks of these magic trees, as you put them?

And what about the fire risk that eucalypts can play in other countries?

A quarter of a year, and was that to grow wood for use of, to harvest for wood, or why was there such a commitment to planting eucalypt?

So Steve, we've talked about, you know, eucalypts in terms of Western science and I guess economic benefit, environmental management.

You've also increasingly been interested in First Nation understandings of these trees and their place in the landscape and their role culturally.