Description
This tree is a Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), located within a confined rear garden area of the apartment complex. This tree has achieved substantial proportions and scale. It has an approximate height of 16-18m and a spread of 22-25m with a trunk diameter at 1.0m above the ground of 1.2m. Canopy and root zone extends beyond the property’s rear garden to adjoining properties 79 Elizabeth Bay Road (north-eastern corner) and 81 Elizabeth Bay Road (south-eastern corner). This fig appears to be in good health and condition with some minor pruning and alignment of the canopy.
Significance
The large Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), located within the rear garden of the ‘Ercildoune’ apartment building, makes a significant contribution to the visual and aesthetic character of this development, although it is not readily seen from the street, it would certaininly screen and soften the apartment complex when viewed from the harbour. Similar examples of mature remnant figs can be found throughout the Elizabeth Bay precinct (refer to the adjoining Macleay Reserve and listings for 53-55, 85-91, 93 and 97 Elizabeth Bay Road in this Register). This specimen is now contained within a very small parcel of private open space, but continues the landscape character and theme of more significant historic elements from earlier phases of development in Elizabeth Bay.
Historical notes
It is not known when this Fig was planted. Assessment of 1943 aerial photos are inconclusive as to whether this tree was present prior to this time, and if it was, it was reasonably small. It is therefore likely to have been planted post 1920’s at the earliest or possibly following the construction of the current apartments assumed to be some time in the 1960’s.
This large growing species was used as a major landscape element throughout much of the nineteenth century and remains an important and defining landscape element in the Elizabeth Bay harbour-side precinct. The magnificent scale and broad dense evergreen canopies of these figs were ideally suited to grand garden schemes.
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