Lone Pine

The Lone Pine was a solitary tree on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, which marked the site of the Battle of Lone Pine in August 1915. It was a Turkish or East Mediterranean pine (Pinus brutia).

Pines are often planted as memorials in civic parks around Australia to the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in Gallipoli are also known as "Lone Pines" or "Gallipoli Pines".

Pinus brutia or Turkish pine is native to the Gallipoli Peninsula and scattered specimens grew across the hills of the battlefield, and all the trees except the famous one were cut down by the Turks for construction of their defensive trenches.

Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) is not native to the Gallipoli peninsula but grows naturally in other Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, Syria and Morocco but is widely planted. Logs and branches of Aleppo pine were brought into Gallipoli from plantations beyond the Dardanelles and also used to roof the Turkish trenches and dug-outs.

However, the origins of both the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) and the Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), now widely planted across Australian civic gardens as "Lone Pines", can be traced back to the Gallipoli battlefield of 1915.

The tree at the Lone Pine Cemetery at Gallipoli is of a third species: stone or umbrella pine (Pinus pinea).