‘Untitled (Gum tree, Boolarra, Gippsland)’ c. 1901

This photograph, of one of the giant gum trees in Gippsland’s forests, was taken by Joshua Wickett Gliddon, a farmer and amateur historian who took this image as a young man. He wrote that it was ‘probably well over a century old, and hollowed out by bushfires many years earlier… Having been dead for about 20 years before the photograph, it fell shortly after, and the trunk, which was without limbs for the first 100 ft, could easily have had a vehicle driven along it for that distance. It was the last of the big trees in that district.’ Few trees of such stature and age survive now but resilient gum trees are reshooting and sprouting from the ashes.

Joshua Wickett Gliddon

Untitled (Gum tree, Boolarra, Gippsland) c. 1901
silver gelatin photograph
The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973