Taradale Cemetery Lone Pine memorial

Lone Pine memorial within the Taradale Cemetery, 2010

In 1949 ex-serviceman F.S. ('Mick') Howard of Hastings obtained three pine cones which reputedly came from Australian-grown descendants of the original Gallipoli Lone Pine. J.G.C. McKenzie, a sometime Hastings City Council parks superintendent, propagated six seedlings from the cones. Three of the seedlings were planted locally: one at the Park Island Cemetery, one at the Taradale Cemetery, and one on Te Mata Peak (the others went to New Plymouth, Ashburton and Christchurch). 

Mr Howard (who had himself fought at Gallipoli) planted the Te Mata seedling in June 1950; members of the Hawkes Bay Main Body Association ceremonially planted the Park Island seedling on 12 November 1950; the Taradale seedling was presumably planted at about the same time. Only the Taradale tree survived, although the Te Mata tree was afterwards replaced by an example of Pinus radiata, which grew to an impressive size.

A memorial was erected at the Taradale site in 1999 (although the RSA plaque on the memorial is dated March 1998). After the unveiling of the memorial, another 'lone pine' seedling was planted nearby.

Ironically, there is some doubt over whether either of the Taradale trees is a true 'lone pine' descendant. Both trees are Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis). Recent research by botanists Mike Wilcox and David Spencer has established that the original lone pine at Gallipoli was almost certainly a Turkish red pine (Pinus brutia), and that the only known surviving Pinus brutia 'lone pine' descendant planted in New Zealand prior to 2009 was a tree planted on the Paeroa golf course in 1957.

In 2015 a number of Pinus brutia seedlings grown at the Rotorua headquarters of Scion (NZ Forest Research Institute) from seeds from the Paeroa tree were distributed around the country as living memorials (see the Lone Pine memorials project). 

The above narrative has drawn upon the following sources, some of which differ in details: 'Hastings' Gallipoli Pine', Northern Advocate, 30/4/1949, p. 4; 'News of the day', Gisborne Herald, 2/11/1950, p. 6; 'Lone Pine of Gallipoli', Press, 2/8/1956, p. 6;  Greymouth mayor F.W. Baillie and Bill Eade talk about Lone Pine memorial trees in New Zealand, Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, 1961 (246791); 'Historic tree interest on the increase', Daily Telegraph, 9/9/1997; Mike Wilcox and David Spencer, 'Stand up the real Anzac Lone Pine of Gallipoli', New Zealand Journal of Forestry, vol. 52, no. 1, May 2007, pp. 3-9; Graham Watton, 'Only link of its kind left', Ohinemuri Regional History Journal, no. 53, September 2009; 'Lone Gallipoli pines to live on in Anzac tribute', Stuff National, 22/4/2015; 'The seeds of war produce new life', Hawkes Bay Today, 23/4/2015.