Nice!

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but seeing a few more large ones out west reminded me that this is one of the blandest of the "historically rare and sought after" conifers. It just looks like a somewhat bold textured hemlock to me. Which, since hemlock is already the finest textured Pinaceae, doesn't make for a very bold look! I've posted along these lines before to other pics of it that people have posted so don't feel singled out ;-) If you like it, I'm glad you are able to cultivate it.

I wouldn't want to live with those rules, but they are looking a lot less "draconian & often illogical" in light of things like this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7786925/Italys-coastal-palm-trees-under-attack-by-army-of-weevils.html    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-30192388 http://www.emeraldashborer.info/  - etc. etc. Anyhow, I'm obviously not prejudiced against it per se; just against the notion it's as striking looking as various other rare conifers. Speaking of which, Rimu isn't native to your area, but do you see them planted around?

Cephalotaxus is another bland conifer. The upright gold one is the exception.

Yeah the only Cephalotaxus I have is the one going around as "C. fortunei", which has the longest needles.

Yes there are Rimu in the collections of specialists & in Botanic Gardens. The Tasmanian Dacrydiums are more commonly grown but only do really well in protected rainforesty gardens. D.franklinii is the holy grail for cool forest conifer fans here though the "splitters" have put it in a new genus these days.........yes the bio security system is important for keeping out pests & diseases.....Chestnut Blight is a good example.......Chestnuts were a total prohibition for a long time,...then I agitated in the 1980s & we worked out protocols for the import of various species & cultivars....more recently there was an outbreak of blight in Victoria (which it is claimed has been eradicated) & it's got almost impossible again. We used to be able to freely get Pinus seed from USA but now it's totally banned which is a pain as in these days of instant global communication it is much easier to source material. I can't believe we used to do it all by post & telephone in the "old days"

"I wonder if it's available in Aust. I hadn't heard of it"

Keteleeria fortunei is in cultivation in Australia, I've seen photos of it at one of the big botanic gardens, I forget whether it was Melbourne or Sydney. So it might be possible to get grafted plants and/or seedlings from there.

Resin

Yes I just saw that photo. I guess I could try but some of our botanic gardens have signed international agreements not to distribute material to individuals, I know the Tasmanian gardens has I'm not sure about Melbourne. The Tasmanian mob are in for a rude shock if they ever ask me for material!

"signed international agreements not to distribute material to individuals"

Simple - you just take cuttings when nobody is looking. Believe me if the TSA fails to detect terrorist contraband with a 90%+ failure rate (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/reassessing_air.html), one's chances of getting caught for taking cuttings from a garden are, well, pretty darn small unless you're being an absolute idiot about it. And frankly, in 20 years time I suspect botanical gardens will find it quaint they ever once worried about such a thing. If current trends towards the development of the "Idiocracy" are to believed. (of course with some conifers, as another thread points out, you'd have to have a cherry picker to take the right cuttings in the first place, so...you're not likely to pull that off) You have to have a somewhat extra-legal perspective on, "Why is this rule here in the first place, and what's going to happen if I break it?" For example, if some rare small tree gets a reputation in some idiotic traditional medicine system, for say, boosting testosterone and virility, you can easily surmise you might not be the only person taking a couple cuttings from it...and in a few months after a garden publicizing the location of it, it could be dead from being defoliated. OTOH, if you take cuttings of a long languishing obscure hybrid cultivar that isn't released for some idiotic reason, which the garden later bulldozes, I don't care what the rules say, you've obviously done the world a favor. For example, don't get me started on the idiocy of a certain "public" US university saying their fruit breeding efforts can only be used by wholesale producers, and not home gardeners.

In discussing how the sausage of modern horticulture is made, me and a "more prominent than myself" west coast horticulturalist agreed that in all likelihood - I'm citing this as a related example - a number of plant introductions from Europe or Asia to the US still occur via "ad hoc" methods. In other words the plants are smuggled. So, draconian laws or inane policies are there to be broken by those with the means to break them. BTW I'm not actually saying it's always an ethically equivalent thing in all cases; I'm simply pointing out it's another case where someone bends the rules because it's the only practical option. I used to be quite irritated when I read of US quarantine laws when I got into horticulture in the 1990s. Well, now I have the perspective of what has happened since then...examples cited above...and to some degree those laws are looking like a good thing to me. With plenty of exceptions to the specifics, of course.

Interesting story another more-prominent-than-myself horticulturalist told me about a couple years ago:

http://www.icangarden.com/document.cfm?task=viewdetail&itemid=6256

I wonder which six rhododendron species are considered invasive in New Zealand.

Yep. It is a great temptation for those who know the risks & system better than those running it. Many seeds are seized every day for not being on the permitted lists. It can be very frustrating dealing with the barriers imposed when you have a better idea of any risks than the authors of those regulations. As to the Botanic Gardens agreements: I have a very close relationship with the local Botanic Gardens & freely exchange material with them. Unfortunately if they request material from gardens which have such restrictive agreements in place they in turn have to sign an agreement not to distribute said material before receiving it. These organizations are like monsters without a head with 'desk-jockeys' making the rules! I battled quarantine for decades just to maintain my right to import plant material successfully. After a break for some 15years the system had so changed that I have had to re-learn how to operate within it. The details of some stories of which I am aware in this regard are not appropriately discussed on a public forum though. The problem is if you get into the situation like the NZ case it pretty much ruins any chance of purposeful future seed introduction activity.

Yes it seems like this is increasingly the case with the so-called "academy": common sense gets thrown out of the window. I'm sure they have some kind of just-so rationale for their policies, but let's not kid ourselves, most "bio threats" through history have come as a result of the actions of governments or corporations, not individuals and certainly not serious horticulturalist-individuals.