The Australian native Bunya Pine is one of Australia’s most interesting plans.
It grows into a huge tree around 35 metres tall and sets soccer-ball sized cones at the top that weigh 6kg or more. In late summer of autumn the Bunya pine drops these very heavy cones from 35m in the air. If a car is parked underneath, enormous damage may occur. And you definitely wouldn’t want to risk them falling onto your head.
The cones contain huge edible seeds about the size of a golf ball. The aboriginal people used to eat these seeds and migrated long distances at the special time of the year to collect them.
The seeds can be roasted (200ºC) for about 15 minutes and they taste very much like chestnuts. I prefer to split them open & put a knob of butter in the middle.
Bunya pines are amongst the tallest trees in gardens in Australia and they are upright and rather narrow – so they are easy to spot from the distance.
Why not hunt some down and see if there are free nuts to eat!
… Bunya pine nuts.
Hooroo!
