It was 75 years ago that Ray Hasler watched the Duke of Gloucester plant a pine seedling on the site of the planned Australian War Memorial.
On that day, the tree was ''about as thick as your thumb, and up to about knee height'', but today, the Lone Pine stands more than 20m.
The tree is named after the scene of an Australian battle during the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.
The Turks had cut down all but one of the trees on the ridge to cover their trenches, and at least two Australian soldiers are known to have picked up one of the scattered pine cones to bring home.
Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith, whose brother was killed in the battle for the Lone Pine Ridge, sent a cone home to his mother in Inverell, NSW.
She kept the cone for 13 years, until 1928, when she grew two seedlings, one of which she presented to the town of Inverell, and the other to the Department of the Interior in Canberra.
The Duke of Gloucester planted this second tree on the site slated for the yet-to-be built Australian War Memorial in October 1934, where it has flourished ever since.
For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times