22/04/2020
Five things you didn’t know about Bunya pines
• Bunya pines are actually conifers, not pine trees. They belong to the cone-bearing Araucariaceae family, which is now restricted to the certain places in the southern hemisphere. They were once distributed worldwide but became extinct in the northern hemisphere towards the end of the Cretaceous period.
• They are the giants of the rainforest, and can grow over 40 metres tall, with a diameter of 2 metres. In the rainforest, the first branch can occur over 20 metres from the ground (making them very hard to climb!). Today, you can sometimes see the hand and foot holes made by indigenous climbers in the trunks of older Bunya pines.
• Having survived the era of the dinosaurs, Bunya pines are now mountain-top refugees found between Gympie and the Bunya Mountains, with a small population in North Queensland. The Bunya Mountains National Park protects the largest stand of these prehistoric relics in the world today.
• The timber of the Bunya pine is ideal for use in the production of acoustic musical instruments.
• The common name “bunya” comes from the many forms of the name used by indigenous people, including bonye, bunyi or bunya-bunya.
