Araucaria cunninghamii
Plant Number: 28
Common Name: Hoop Pine, Moreton Bay Pine
Scientific Name: Araucaria cunninghamii
Derivation of name
Araucaria – Referring to the Arauco province in Chile where the first related species was discovered
cunninghamii – after Allan Cunningham, a 19th century botanist and explorer who collected the first documented hoop pine specimens
Description
- Tall straight tree to 50 metres in height
- Rough, scaly brown bark
- Stiff, veinless, pointy leaves to 8 mm
- Green to brown rounded woody seed cones to 10 cm
- Relatively slow growing tree that can live to 450 years
Human Usage
Indigenous Australians warmed the sap (nalbo) with their fingers and used it as a glue to fasten axe heads to hands. ers and used
as glue to fasten axe heads to handles. The timber was also used to make boomerangs and coolamons.
Early European settlers used the timber for the masts of tall ships. Felled Hoop Pine was actually the first export sent from Brisbane to England. The timber was also highly sought after for housing and furniture construction.
Hoop Pine timber remained in such great demand that the Queensland Forest Service started commercial plantations in the early 1920's.
Acknowledgment: Mangroves to Mountains, Bush Heritage, Superior Wood
Photo Credit: Tatters