I live in the pine forest of Texas and have been trying to describe to classes and Forest Service professionals the cones of the Bunya Bunya I saw on a recent trip to Australia. I would love to get my hands on a cone so that I could use it as a visual aid when I go out and talk about other countries. I also wonder if I could grow one here. I have acid, heavy clay soil, and it is pretty humid in this area. Thank you!
Growing it in Lufkin would be difficult, you'd have a high risk of it being killed in a bad winter. It might last for a few years until you get a strong norte, which would be the end of it. Keeping the cones as demonstration specimens is also difficult, as they disintegrate at maturity. I've got one, which has been preserved by dipping in a varnish coating to hold it together and then had a hair net tied over it, but even so it is fragile and I keep handling of it to an absolute minimum.
Peavy, Not sure about Lufkin, but I currently have 7 Bunyas here on the North border of Houston. Give me a few years until my big ones are mature enough, and provided I have a proper pair, I'll send you a cone!
Dang, MichaelF, sorry about the spelling. Thank you for pointing that out. I did not know that the cones were that fragile, but I certainly could put one in netting and/or apply some varnish. I would still like to find one. If you hear of any available, let me know.
DGuertin, You have 7 growing? Good heavens, that is fantastic. Remember me if you get any cones. Where did you get the seeds by the way?
I cheated; 5 were bought in 1 gallon pots and are now in 3's going into 5's by the next month or two. 2 were bought as overgrown 5's, went into 7's within a day or two, and will be going into 10's by the end of the year... Other than that, you can buy seeds off eBay. ;-)
Also, if you look down two or three threads on the main Araucaria page (click your back button and scroll down), you'll see a thread I started a week or so ago regarding a Bunya Party. That would be a few selected clips of my back garden....
Here's the direct link to DG's Bunya party . . . http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=38805
I hope that you have a HUGE yard somewhere. Those things are enormous when they grow up. I should have known to look on EBay. They seem to have everything. Thanks.
Hmm, seems to be just the one up at the mo. Probably should have MichaelF or someone from Oz get you a better idea of what this is exactly... http://cgi.ebay.com/AUSTRALIAN-BUNY...VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
That's just a single Bunya seed. I'd not rely on its being germinable - it'll quite likely be too dry to grow (the seeds are very sensitive to drying out).
In other words, somewhere in the £7 - 10 range for a single seed that probably won't make it. What a total knob... 'Mystical,' 'magical,' mumbo jumbo won't do any good at getting a dried up seed to grow a proper tree. I have a friend in Oz that keeps bunya, as well as several other species within the genus. Will see if I can't get your info over to her.
Here's a pic of a whole Bunya cone. It's a pic I was sent a while ago by someone who wanted it identified, hoping they won't mind my posting it here!
Thank you for offering to get in touch with a friend in Oz. Re EBay offier: "Magical" and "Mystical" -- I doubt it, and "alive" would be equally unbelievable. The picture is amazing. The ones I saw in Australia had lost the green color.
I just found this site as I was looking up information on this tree. The City of Atwater, California has a full grown Auricaria on the grounds of our local home museum. This tree was apparently planted by the pioneer family that lived in the home. It is about sixty or seventy feet tall and bears cones every other year. We have dried the cones for use at Christmas in the museum. We would be happy to share these cones for teaching purposes. They stay green for about two months after they fall and recently the young man who is Director of Parks for the city has propagated some of the seeds. We will have to wait and see how they do, but hopefully by Spring we will have a number of new trees. I was told however that transplanting these is a delicate operation as the root system is very fragile.
Don't hold your breath. I've seen them come up years after being planted. My first nursery job the owner had some planted in the ground and every year for at least 3 years we were getting seedlings from that spot. They are pretty easy to manage while young just take care not to damage the taproot when first moving.
I would love to have a cone to show when I talk about Australia. We think that our pine cones are large, and we live in an area where pine plantations are a major source of income, so people would be amazed to see one of those cones. Please let me know what I need to do to get one. Thank you!
We would love to send you one. We just need your address, etc. and I will pack and mail it to you. I believe that if properly cushioned and wrapped this should be successful. Will send it either FedEx or UPS.
Wow! Address is Angier Peavy 6851 State Highway 94 Lufkin, Texas 75904 Please let me know how to pay for the postage. Either UPS or FedEx is fine. Thank you! Angier Peavy
Will do my best to get this off to you post haste. I will include the museum's address for you. Very happy to oblige and if for some reason it does not make it intact please let me know and we will try again. I will also send a picture of the tree. Georgia Johnson Atwater Historical Society, Inc.
Hi guys, Spoke to a friend who was originally from Queensland a few months ago and she was telling me that when she was a kid her parents or grandparents used to take the seed from Bunya Bunya, draw small faces or stick-men on them and hand them out to her and her sister as toys?!! They called them Bunya men and apparently it was pretty common among their friends too. I figured that this was either an old Australian tradition or they just lived too far away from any toy shops.
Ah the Bunya Men. A close relative to our other Australian plant characters: Snuggle Pot, Cuddle Pie and the Big Bad Banksia men. All written up in the books by May Gibbs.
I picked up some of those books for my nieces when I was there. I was up in the burned out portion of the Grampians and saw lots of threatening Banksia Men!
