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There is a tree that once grew, long ago in the time of dinosaurs. Everyone thought this tree had gone extinct two million years ago. Which means that in all human history, not a soul had ever seen this tree. It was gone like the dinosaurs.

And then one spring afternoon in 1994, a park ranger was exploring the rough terrain of a national park in Australia’s New South Wales. This stretch of rugged forest was mostly unexplored, and on this day he saw something no human had seen: the bright-green fernlike foliage and bubbly black bark of the long-extinct dinosaur trees, the Wollemi pines. It was the greatest botanical discovery of the twentieth century. They had been here, secretly, for two million years.

How had they survived so long? Surely only by staying hidden from us, everyone agreed on that. The scientists who were taken to confirm their identity were blindfolded so they’d never know the exact location of the trees and the information couldn’t spread.

Only 10 percent of the Wollemi’s seeds have a viable embryo, and most of these are eaten by cockatoos, so the researchers needed to act quickly, harvesting the seeds they could salvage, studying, preserving, and keeping them safe. The seeds can be found only at the very top of its branches, hidden within cones, and accessed by descending, harnessed, from a helicopter. A kind of extreme sport, a spy mission. Extract the seeds. Save a species.

Fast-forward a few decades. There’s a much bigger danger approaching. A fire, an inferno, destroying everything in its path, plants and animals alike. They’re calling it a “megafire,” they’re saying no fire has ever been as bad. It’s burned twenty-four million hectares and three billion animals, and it’s headed straight for the last remnants of the dinosaur trees.

Firefighters pull on their helmets and protective gear and they descend from their choppers into the dense burning forest. They make a barrier, they take up positions, and they fight this fire with everything they have. They save one of the world’s oldest and rarest plants.

The Wollemi’s location is never revealed to the public, even throughout this incredible mission and the worldwide joy of the rescue.

Now the seeds we have of the Wollemia nobilis sit in aisle G, row 12, and they are not on Hank’s list.