The H2 Hinde Tree is a heritage-listed tree of the species Macadamia integrifolia at Colliston, 926 Gilston Road, Gilston, City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 14 August 2008.
History
The H2 Hinde tree is located on Colliston, a former farm in the Gold Coast hinterland about nine kilometres southwest of Nerang in the Gilston district. It is the parent of a variety (see note below) of the species Macadamia integrifolia and was probably planted in the 1920s. It was registered by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1960 as a scion wood (see note below) and in the two decades after that time, a significant number of commercial orchards in the State propagated trees using material from this tagged parent tree, it being one of only two Australian-developed varieties to have then achieved such a status. The macadamia nut industry is the largest based on an indigenous Australian food crop and since the mid-1990s this country has become the world's largest exporter of the nuts.
Note. The horticultural use of the term "variety" refers to selected clones usually propagated by grafting. A parent tree is a genetically unique plant that is selected for specific traits, in the case of macadamias these include: strong tree growth, low incidence of pests and diseases, low incidence of stick-tights and premature germination of nuts, reduced years to bearing, high kernel quality and desirable market requirements.
Note. The term "scion wood" refers to the part of a tree that is grafted onto the roots or stem of another, known as the rootstock. This grafted branch or bud transmits the flowering or fruiting characteristics of the variety from which it is taken. With macadamia trees grafting is the only method, reliable and speedy enough by commercial standards, of growing a plant that will exhibit the sought after nut bearing characteristics, as they do not always grow true-to-type when propagated from seeds or seedlings.
Colliston was selected by Michael James Hinde in 1879 when land along the upper reaches of the Nerang River was being opened to closer settlement. In 1882 he married Alice Batten, the daughter of a Crown Land Ranger living at Pimpama. According to family lore, it was while he was walking to visit her before they married that he came across some native macadamia nut seedlings, uprooted them and re-planted them on Colliston. Otherwise he practiced small-scale farming and eked out a difficult living for himself and what was to become a large family of eight children, his enterprise emulating the nature of many other farms in the Albert Shire. He was resourceful in his efforts to cultivate new crops and test their worthiness as saleable products. Some of his crop choices reflected those made by many other farmers in the area, including maize and arrowroot in the early years, and turning to oranges in the early twentieth century. Like many others he established a small dairy. In lean times he harvested fruits growing wild on his property, such as raspberries, gooseberries and tomatoes, and caught fish in the river and fowl in the scrub. He planted a vineyard, and practiced apiary. Following his death in 1937 Colliston passed to his eldest son, who engaged a niece and her husband, William Hill, to manage the farm.
Also according to family lore, when his orange trees began to decline (probably in the 1920s), Michael Hinde started to cultivate macadamia trees between them, using material from the native trees he had planted in the early 1880s. A member of the family Proteaceae, series Folliculares and tribe Grevillea, which includes hakea and banksia, the genus Macadamia is divided into tropical and subtropical species. The three main varieties of subtropical macadamia - Macadamia tetraphylla, Macadamia integrifolia, and Macadamia ternifolia - are indigenous to the coastal rainforests of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Of these only the first two bear edible nuts.