Araucaria bidwillii had come into my ken when I was at my university . The Southern Lawns where we would lounge between lectures ( and at times when we should have been attending lectures ) had a fine standing row of them . Yet I never really took much notice of them , except sometimes to jab myself accidentally on one of the lance-shaped leaves on one of the very prickly pieces of branch that had fallen .

I was much more familiar with the Norfolk Pine , which resembles the shape of the Christmas Tree. In fact , when a couple of Norfolks began to outgrow the pots that they were in while functioning as Cristmas trees for the grandchildren , I transferred them to the block and planted them not far from the southern fence , where they flourished

. But I had not taken all that much notice of the Bunya , except now and then to notice the beautifully rounded tops of them that one could see from the train when travelling .

Then my parents built their place at Tanilba Bay , and I became a little more familiar with the huge specimens there at Tanilba House , all well over one hundred and fifty years old . Yet the best -- if one could call it that -- was yet to come . In the car park of a shopping mall in the Centre of Kempsey , grew a magnificent Bunya .

Since the cones of the tree are not unlike a large pineapple in shape and outer texture , but are still larger and weigh considerably more than any such fruit , it was quite dangerous to park one's car near it . During fruiting season , a cone weighing up to ten kilos ( twenty two pounds ) dropping from forty-five feet could make a considerable dent in a car's frame , and even more in somebody's skull. They reach falling speeds of over one hundred and fifty miles per hour .

The seeds within the cone are much the same shape as pine nuts one purchases to cook with , but naturally enough , they are very much larger, as big as one's thumb at least . They are covered with a brown skin , but the meat of the nut is pure white. They can be eaten raw , tasting to my mind not unlike a chestnut , though I have been ridiculed for that opinion. They are quite sweet when raw especially after a time in a refrigerator , but they can also be cooked .

They can be simply roasted ; boiled in salted water ( one suggestion was to use the salt water from cooked corned meat -- tried it once , didn't like it ) ; they can be mashed , made into fritters and in one recipe , toffee covered and bottled in rum . The latter would I think , require a modicum of courage to try.

It was only in the early times at the block that I had learned that the Bunya was a good source of bush tucker , so good a source that various clans of the aboriginal tribes would lay claim to particular trees , and that the ownership of individual trees could be handed down through the family . Wherever stands were plentiful ( and in Queensland there are Bunya forests of considerable area ) a general meeting of clans would gather during fruiting season . No warfare took place , as there was an element of the sacred about the ceremonies of gathering , and if there had been strife , a truce was declared till the nuts were harvested and feasts held .

Very well , I thought , we shall have Bunyas on the block.

How to get seedlings ? Easy . Collect two or three of the giant cones that had fallen from the trees at Tanilba , husk them and take them to Dondingalong .

And so I planted them down one part of the orchard , and in several randomly selected spots about the block , many of which I lost the location of later. I gave some to Leo , some to a friendly nurseryman on the road to Crescent Head , and offered some to another near neighbour . His look of scorn as he refused backed up his firmly given opinion that he would not have the bloody things at any price , since they were not good to walk under nor on the spiny leaves.

So I waited , and it was not long before the first bean like shoots appeared . They seemed to die soon, and I gave up . So did the nurseryman who had the same result . What neither of us knew about Bunyas was that they have a second process in their sprouting -- where the root forms and the seedling grows on from there.

So I dispensed with most of the planted seeds in the orchard .

On later walks around the block I ran across some happy seedlings sprouting in lots of odd places where I had dropped them , to let nature take its course .

Apparently that was the best way ! So one hundred years from now ......