Tree ID

[wander]

Is this a Huon or King Billy?

[frenchy_84]

any better photos, which show its leaves?

[Lady McGuyver]

I'll put my money on King Billy

[mjdalessa]

+1, Huon Pine has draping foliage

[north-north-west]

Ask for its drivers licence.

[Graham51]

Best to walk around it when you're there and see what sort of folliage has dropped on the ground.

[taswegian]

Blackwoods can have furrowed trunks like that.
What are the trees surrounding it? Eucalypts?

Do Huon and or King Billy grow in that sort of forest type?

[Son of a Beach]

The branches up towards the top have that curved stag-horn look of a King Billy, rather than the drooping/sweeping branches of the Huon Pine. Also the twisted helical lines on the trunk are typical of many (but not all) King Billys.

And the fact that you got close to one makes it more likely that it was a King Billy as most (but not all) Huon Pines are in more remote locations. There are many King Billy's in commonly accessed areas.

The foliage is the easiest way to tell. The Huon Pine foliage looks like in this picture: http://bushwalk.com/blog/wp-content/upl ... -Jetty.jpg

King Billy has foliage that looks an awful lot like that of a Norfolk Pine (but very different branch structure). (it's foliage is apparently supposed to have a similar structure to some selaginella too, hence it's latin name meaning "a similar taxonomy to selaginella").

[wander]

At the time I thought it was a grove of King Billies. But after reading some history of the piners in the Picton area I started to re-think that idea. It is a difficult to get to location so I'm not ducking back to get some leaves in the near future. The leaves were very large and the other comments seem to confirm it as a small forest of King Billies. Also the location is on a ridge top whereas all the Huon locations I have seen have been wet, damp, soggy swamping edges of rivers. To some extent the opposite. I have only one other possibly helpful pic and based on the notes above it confirms the King Billy diagnosis.

[JamesMc]

If the leaves were very large then it's not a hoon pine. Their leaves are almost hair like.

JamesMc

[ithomas]

It's almost impossible to ID this tree without leaves or fruit. The first photograph looks like a eucalypt to me(!) while the second photograph doesn't look like the first! Some very old and large celery-top pines can look like the 2nd photograph, so can Blackwood. Celery-top has flattened leave-like stems about 3-5cm long which actually look like celery leaves. Huon has tiny leaves which are closely appressed along longish branchlets. King Billy has smallish keel shaped leaves about 6-8mm long which are not closely appressed onto branchlets. None of the pines have 'very large leaves'.
Ian