Scene on the American Creek, Wollongong,…

Very rare engraving after a drawing by Eugene von Guerard of Wollongong, signed at lower right (in reverse) printed in 1865.

Wonderful lithograph recording the luxurious rain forest at American Creek, near Wollongong. The trees depicted in the lithograph include; cabbage trees (Cordyline), bangalow palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) and flame trees (Brachychiton acerifolium).  Woodcutters can be seen at work at lower left of the image.

Von Guerards, description of the scene;

This sylvan scene is situated at a distance of little more than ten miles from Wollongong, near the junction of a little stream upon which some prosaic devotee of the bottle has bestowed the dishonouring appellation of the Brandy and Water Creek, with the American Creek, and at the foot of a noble range of mountains. With the lofty bangalow palm, the cabbage palm, the gigantic wild fig-tree, the fire tree (otherwise known as the blaze tree) with its vividly scarlet blossoms, are intermingled the nettle tree, the rose-wood, the sassafras, the white-wood, the wild rose, numerous varieties of the fern tree, and parasites innumerable the whole being woven together into one dense and almost impenetrable mass of foliage. Unfortunately the progress of settlement is necessitating the destruction of some of these magnificent forests, which in many instances clothe a rich chocolate soil of especial value to the farmer. At the time this view was sketched, numerous fires had been kindled by the wood-cutters, and the stately giants were rapidly falling before the pitiless axe of the hardy pioneers of civilization.

From the original edition of the Illustrated Sydney News.