By Karen Phillips
The Illawarra Flame Tree or Currajong (Brachychiton acerifolius), on the west side of Wray Crescent, is an icon of Mt Evelyn.
Believed to be over 100 years old, it stood in the front garden of the house attached to Mt Evelyn’s original general store.
The business became the old IGA supermarket and expanded onto the house site, with the tree in front.
The late Alf Knowles remembered the tree as a sapling, small enough to jump over, when he was a boy.
Mr Knowles was born in 1918 and came to Mt Evelyn when he was four, which seems to date the tree to the early 1920s.
Two more Flame Trees were planted on the opposite side of Wray Crescent, one on the Station House corner, the other at the carpark entrance between the Station House and St John Ambulance building.
This seems to have been in the 1990s.
One of the trees was removed after being vandalised.
The other was narrowly saved from removal when the traffic lights were installed in Wray Crescent.
When the old supermarket was due for demolition in 2000, the news that the planned re-development might involve cutting down the original Flame Tree was greeted with dismay.
After MEEPPA campaigned to save the tree, and a petition was presented, the community’s voice was heeded.
The northern section of the new building (now Treasure Corner Op Shop) was set far enough back on the block to allow the tree to be retained.
Another three Flame Trees were added to the streetscape, making a total of five in Wray Crescent.
The planting scheme was extended with three more near the roundabout at the top of York Road (the garden in front of Subway), which were in place by 2019.
The street trees are all on public land, whereas the original tree is on private property.
The smallest of the Flame Trees in Wray Crescent, on the site of the previously vandalised tree, came into bloom in February 2022.
The blossoms were salmon-pink, much lighter than the flame-red of the two older trees.
But someone had it in for poor little ‘Pinky’ from the first.
Even before it flowered, its main trunk had been broken off.
The tree has since been plucked out, root and branch.
Flame trees have become a popular landscaping choice.
They are also featured in the planting around the Council offices in Lilydale.
