Melbourne heritage group chaiman Tom Thorpe told the ABC four trees in Victoria were the only “direct descendants” of the solitary pine tree around which the Battle of Lone Pine was fought at Gallipoli between Australian and Turkish troops in August 1915.

Mr Thorpe, the chairman of the Wattle Park Heritage Group where one of the four trees grows, said the trees were propagated from a pine cone brought home after the battle by then Private, later Sergeant, Keith McDowell.

However Cr Kidd said his research had shown another cone was souvenired by Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith who sent it home to his mother, a Mrs McMullen in Cardiff, after his brother was killed at the Battle of Lone Pine.

“Mrs McMullen kept the cone for 13 years before planting seeds from the cone in 1928. Three seedlings flourished,” he said.

Cr Kidd said she presented one to the City of Inverell where it grew into a large tree in its main park, the second she grew in Cardiff and the third was planted at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra  by the Duke of Gloucester in 1934.

“I suspect the first Orange Lone Pine in Lone Pine Avenue in Orange descended from the Canberra War Memorial tree,” he said.

He said other pine trees around Orange had been propagated from that tree.

“There are a number of ‘Lone Pines’ in Orange, all in one way or another close relatives of the original tree from which the cone was brought to Australia.

“Many have been propagated from the tree at the memorial in Canberra.”

Cr Kidd said the tree at Inverell had to be cut down a few years ago due to its age and weather damage.

“I was there when it had to be cut down and was given two cross-sections of the trunk which I brought back to Orange,” he said.

Cr Kidd said he gave one to the RSL and the other will be part of an upcoming display at the Orange City library.

He said Orange-born Victoria Cross winner John Hamilton VC received his medal for conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine on August 9, 1915.