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Harmless🍽️ Edible☠️ To avoid

🌲 Bunya pine

Araucaria bidwillii · Araucariaceae

🦘 Australia
🧠 To remember it"Under a laden bunya, do not set up camp" - the very tree that feeds you can kill you with a falling cone.
Bunya pine — Araucaria bidwillii

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Huge conifer with a characteristic dome-shaped silhouette, dark scaly bark, short and rigid leaves with a sharp point arranged in a tight spiral on the branchlets. Produces enormous female cones weighing up to 10 kg, containing large edible seeds (bunya nuts).

  1. highly recognizable dome silhouette standing out above the canopy
  2. short, rigid, sharp leaves arranged in a dense spiral
  3. enormous cones (up to 30 cm, 10 kg) falling to the ground when ripe - DANGER of falling cones
Sizeup to 50 m
Floweringmature cones every 2-7 years in large quantities (heavy fruiting years)
Habitatrainforests of south-eastern Queensland, disjointed populations in north-eastern Australia, now planted ornamentally worldwide

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous confusionaucun

To tell them apart: the dome silhouette and enormous cones (up to 10 kg) containing the seeds are unique to the bunya pine; no other Australian conifer produces a cone of this size

🍽️ Eating it

Partsseeds (bunya nuts) inside the cone
Seasonmainly during heavy fruiting years, every 2-7 years, late Southern Hemisphere summer-autumn
Tastesimilar to chestnut, slightly sweet and starchy once cooked

Preparation : gather the seeds from inside the cones that have fallen to the ground (NEVER stand under the tree during falling season - risk of severe injury from a cone weighing several kilos); seeds can be eaten raw, cooked in embers, or boiled, and can be pounded into paste then baked into bread (manu)

💊 Healing with it

no major traditional medicinal uses documented

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia - Araucaria bidwillii

⚠️ major physical hazard: never camp or linger under a bunya pine heavy with cones - a 7 kg cone falling from several dozen meters caused severe traumatic brain injury and a multi-million dollar lawsuit in 2015

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • pale wood highly sought after by luthiers for guitar soundboards
  • great traditional Aboriginal gatherings centered around bunya harvests (festivals every 2-7 years) also served as venues for trade and resolving conflicts between groups traveling from far away
Sources (1)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.