The Taunton garden centre is one of a select few in the UK to be allowed to sell the prehistoric Wollemi Pine. It will go on show from July 26 until August 1.

General Manager, Norma Moore, said: “It’s a fantastic opportunity and a real coup to be able to offer our customers this unique and previously thought-to-be extinct plant.

“The tree, which is hardy and easy to look after, will make a fantastic present to keen gardeners who love unique and unusual plants.”

There are fewer than 100 adult Wollemi Pine trees in the wild and there is currently an international conservation programme taking place to help the species, which existed when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

The scheme encourages wide-spread planting of the tree to enable it to withstand global environmental changes and to adapt to different habitats.

The tree was discovered in Australia in 1994. It is a conifer with unusual dark green foliage, bubbly bark and multiple trunks.

The Wollemi Pine can be easily pruned and kept as a multi-stemmed shrub or even as a house plant.

It has unusual pendulous foliage and light apple green new tips in spring and early summer, contrasting against the older dark green foliage.

Another unique feature of the conifer is its pattern of branching with the mature foliage having two ranks of leaves along the branches.

Its bark is also distinct even from related species – looking very much like bubbling chocolate. The Wollemi Pine’s closest living relatives are the Monkey Puzzle tree and Norfolk Island Pine.

The pine was known from fossil records and presumed extinct until it was discovered in 1994 by a bushwalker in the Wollemi National Park just outside Sydney, Australia.

Dubbed the botanical find of the century, it is now the focus of extensive research to conserve this ancient species.

Some of the older adult Wollemi Pines such as 'The Bill Tree' may be more than 1,000 years old.

Due to the Wollemi Pine’s habit of sprouting multiple trunks, called coppicing, the current trunk of ‘The Bill Tree’ may only be up to 400 years old but the tree’s roots could have been around since the time of the Roman Empire.

Although fewer than 100 adult trees remain, they were thought to be widespread across Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent that existed before Australia broke off from Antarctica and began its movement north.

The oldest known Wollemi Pine type fossil dates back 90 million years and it is believed that the pines may have existed since the Jurassic period 200 million years ago. Before it was rediscovered in 1994, it was presumed extinct for around two million years.

The Wollemi Pines go on sale at Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre during the garden centre’s Summer Open Week from July 26 until August 1. The pines cost £49.95 each and are approximately two feet tall.

For further details about the Wollemi Pine and Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre, which is located just off the A38 at Monkton Heathfield between Bridgwater and Taunton, please call 01823 412381.

Photograph caption: Plant Advisor at Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre, Dan Welch with a Wollemi Pine.