There are some lovely Bunya Pine trees in central Bright. The only problem with them is their potential to drop football-size nuts onto pedestrians and vehicles.
Someone placed a sign near the Uniting Church, which says to the effect: “BEWARE FALLING PINE CONES”.
My immediate instinct when I read this sign was to look upwards.
That made me think it’s a stupid sign, probably put there to offset perceived insurance risk.
What’s worse: Having a bunya nut fall on your head or poke you in the eye?
Eating Bunya nuts
Araucaria bidwillii, the Bunya Pine, is a large evergreen coniferous tree native to south-east Queensland and two small disjunct populations in northern Queensland.
According to Wikipedia, the tree was sacred to Aboriginal people.
“The seeds are edible, and are similar to pine nuts, and have been an important food resource for Australian Aboriginal people; groves of the trees were often under particular tribal/ family ownership. In what was probably Australia’s largest indigenous event, diverse tribes – up to thousands of people – once travelled great distances (from as far as Charleville, Dubbo, Bundaberg and Grafton) to the Bunya Mountains and Blackall Ranges of Queensland. They stayed for months, to celebrate and feast on the bunya nut.
Aborigines ate the nut of the bunya tree both raw and cooked (roasted, and in more recent times boiled), and also in its immature form.
Once established, Bunyas are quite hardy and can be grown as far south as Hobart and Christchurch.
I’ve never contemplated eating a Bunya nut and I have no idea how the tree came to be planted in Bright.
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