A RARE and unusual tree discovered by a former Tavistock resident was planted in the Meadows last week by retiring town councillor Dick Eberlie.

Mr Eberlie presented the town with a Wollemi Pine in order to enhance the Meadows.

The unusual tree is a relative of the Monkey Puzzle and has strange bark that looks like brown bubbles.

It was known only from fossils many millions of years old, until a few trees that had survived the millennia were discovered 20 years ago in the Wollemi National Park, west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.

Mr Eberlie said: 'It so happens the man who found the pine and took it to the Sydney Botanical Gardens for identification was my wife's nephew, David Noble, a bush ranger in the National Park.

'The tree has been named after him as Wollemii Nobilis.

'David lived with his parents and grandmother for some years at St John's in Deer Park Lane before the family emigrated to Australia and it is entirely fitting therefore that Tavistock should have one of the trees that he discovered.

'David's family and I hope it will give pleasure to the people of the town for many many years to come.'