Araucaria bidwilii
Plant Number: 43
Common Name: Bunya Pine, Bunya-bunya pine
Scientific Name: Araucaria bidwillii
Derivation of name
Araucaria- After the province of Arauco in Chile
bidwillii – after John Carne Bidwill (1815-1853), a botanical collector of the period
Description
- Tall tree growing 30-45 metres in height, with a straight, rough-barked truck, and a very distinctive symmetrical, dome-shaped crown
- An emergent species in subtropical rainforest and mainly occurs between Nambour and Gympie and west to the Bunya Mountains in Queensland
- Glossy green leaves are lance-shaped, sharply pointed and about 50 mm long
- Male cones are narrow, cylindrical structures to about 20 cm long on the ends of short branchlets which appear in autumn while the large, female fruiting cones are very large (football sized) and generally mature in summer through to early autumn which generally occur every three years
- Both the male and female cones drop from the tree and are hazardous to anyone underneath because of their size and weight
- Each female cone contains 50 to 100 large nuts
Human uses
A very important indigenous food. Young green seed kernel eaten raw which is juicy and delicious. When the seed is mature, the thick end is cracked with a stone and roasted in hot coals and also pounded and roasted into a kind of meal and baked in ashes as a cake. During the "Bunya season" Aboriginal people would temporarily set aside their tribal differences and gather in the mountains for great Bunya Nut Feasts.
Early pioneers also used the timber for floors, walls, roof framing and furniture. The nuts were also eaten by early settlers and during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Acknowledgement: Australian Native Plants Society (Australia)
ANPSA, Bush Heritage
Photo: Jason Baker, Tatiana Gerus