the park is recorded as a heritage place by Heritage Victoria, and the National Trust of Australia has also classified the park. The "Lone Pine" tree growing near the main carpark is listed on the National Trust's Significant Tree Register, being one of the country's few original Lone Pines. The tree was grown from the seed of a cone collected by one of the Australian soldiers involved in the Gallipoli Campaign from the lone pine tree in Gallipoli, Turkey as a reminder of this notable battle and the ANZACs' involvement in World War I. Planted in Wattle Park on 8 May 1933 at the Trooping of the Colour by the 24th Battalion, the tree was the first Lone Pine to ever be publicly planted as an ANZAC memorial, pre-dating the one planted at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance by a month, and the one at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra by seventeen months. Flora and fauna The park contains areas of indigenous remnant bush land which has been identified as regionally significant. The Urban Fauna Survey Unit (Department of Conservation Forests and Lands, 1989) nominated the site as one of regional significance on the basis of its high diversity of common native fauna in a suburban environment. There are recorded to be at least twenty species of butterfly, sixty species of beetle, three species of frogs, bats, skinks, ringtail and brushtail possums. The park's bird life includes kookaburras, rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, galahs, and gang-gang cockatoos. History The park was first created when the Hawthorn Tramway Trust (HTT) purchased 137 acres (554,000 m2) of land from Eliza Welch, under the condition it was to be used as a public park. the park was formerly the residence of the late Cr. Orlando Fenwick, who became Lord Mayor of Melbourne. It was known as Fenwick's Paddock when purchased for about £2500 by the late Mrs. Welch (proprietress of Ball and Welch Pty. Ltd.). The park opened on 31 March 1917 when Sir Arthur Stanley planted a Golden Wattle and named the park. Due to the HTT's financial troubles, further development of the park was put off for some time. After the HTT had been amalgamated into the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board, it was put off due to work on electrifying Melbourne's cable tramways. Planning and development of the park started in the 1920s and 30s, with a plantation of 12,000 wattle trees