Details

Scientific Name: Araucaria bidwillii
Common Name: Bunya pine (full list of common names)
Diameter at Breast Height (DBH in mm): 440
Stems: No
Height (m): 18
Crown (m): 8
Structure: Typical
Habitat Features: No visible habitat features
Tree Protection Zones (m): 5.28

FUN FACT: Tree ID 1554 and 1553 are believed to have been planted around 2000 / 2001 to honour the area’s First Nations heritage.

Estimation of Tree Age (DBM Analysis) / One of the Oldest Trees in the Parkland

This tree is categorised as a “young mature tree” based on the following diameter at breast height (DBM) categories -

• 150-400 mm (juvenile and adolescent trees)
• 401-600 mm (young mature trees)
• 601-800 mm (mature trees)
• 801-1200mm (old trees)
• 1201-1600 mm (very old trees)
• >1601 (veteran trees)

(28 South Environmental Pty Ltd p.36)

About This Species

“The Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) is a culturally and spiritually significant conifer tree for several Indigenous groups in eastern Australia. Sharing the edible nuts and attending ‘Bunya gatherings’ is an important way for these groups to maintain kinship and cultural connections, often transporting the nuts long distances.” Source: Botanic Gardens of Sydney

“One of the most iconic of Queensland trees would have to be the bunya (Araucaria bidwillii)… As an adult, I have come to appreciate the unique history of the bunya, and its enduring relationship with First Nations peoples… A prehistoric tree, the bunya has existed since the Jurassic period, while many of its relatives from the era are now extinct. The botanical family to which it belongs, Araucariaceae, includes the Wollemi pine. They can live up to 600 years and produce massive cones up to 10kg. When these cones fall they can be extremely hazardous, a fact that has caused consternation for councils for decades. For generations, First Nations peoples gathered every three years for a great bunya feast. While bunyas fruit annually, every three to four years there would be a bumper crop, and this was the time for differences to be set aside and clans to gather, feast, trade, marry, perform initiations and other ceremonial duties.” Source: State Library of Queensland

“The blacks would never by any chance cut a bon-yi [bunya pine tree], affirming that to do so would injure the tree.... (When father attempted to cut a notch in a bunya tree)... they almost cried in their distress, saying the tree would die of its wounds.” - CC Petrie, Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland (1983), p 254
“According to Dr. Lauterer... the Bunya pine is the “holy tree” of the aborigines (Buni means holy or ‘awful’ in Turabul).” - Royal Society of Queensland, The Queenslander (Brisbane) Saturday 24 November 1894, p 986
“... the bunya pine (in the 1870s) was inaccessible to the white man. The black man regarded the bunya tree as wholly and solely his heritage. It belonged to him, and on no account would he allow it to be felled or interfered with by the white man.” - J C Bennie, ‘The Bunya Mountains – Early Feasting Ground of the Blacks, The Dalby Herald 1931, p 2