This is the Bunya nut tree, Araucaria bidwillii, thats at our front fence, Indigenous peoples had whole celebrations when these trees were ripe for the harvest and travelled distance to reach them, cos the nuts are damn tasty, a bit like chestnuts and also large enough to feed a crew of folks upon, each nut about 4-5cm long.
Unfortuneately for me, her leaves are also pretty distinctive aka very spikey and all over the place, especially after a couple of stormy days. Treading on them sucks bigtime. Outfront they havent been picked up for years and today in an effort to deskankyise the street front of our place I picked the residual five years or so branches up and cleared around her trunk, you know I think she quite liked the attention. It was a bit like harvesting stinging nettle, a few scrapes and scratches till I got centred and worked out a strategic angle from which to grasp them. It took about 2 hours to clear away the branches. There's actually a goodly space thats been revealed now, even some moss, and Im starting to plot on plantings. A garden bed at her base would be a skirt befitting such an honourable, and indeed naturally 'protective' tree....
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