Araucaria bidwillii bunya bunya

Bunya bunya at Kingscote Gardens. Sairus Patel, 14 Sep 2017

The domed crowns of this distinctive, prehistoric-looking Queensland conifer rise majestically above the flowering trees of its native rainforest – companions that include king palm and Moreton Bay fig, which may be seen in the environs of Stanford. In maturity, the lower branches droop or fall off.

Branchlets gather in pendulous clusters at the ends of whorled branches. The sharp leathery leaves, arranged in spirals, vary gradually in length along each branchlet, producing an effect of intersecting sine waves. Hefty green cones – the size of your head and fiercely armed with prickles – fall intact and are quickly ravaged by squirrels; within are edible nuts some two inches long.

Fallen female cones of bunya bunya at Kingscote Gardens. Sairus Patel, 14 Sep 2017

Two, our oldest specimens, planted in 1898, stand in Dohrmann Grove along Jane Stanford Way. Another, planted in 1908, is east of the Mausoleum near the pathway. The specimen at Kingscote Gardens – likely planted with the house in 1917 – holds pride of place at the end of the main lawn. A tree at the Meyer-Buck House may be glimpsed from the road; it produces seedlings, one of which has been transplanted to Lou Henry Hoover House.

All of Stanford’s bunya bunyas have coned, though bumper crops are produced only every few years. In the autumn of 2017, just after the reopening of Kingscote Gardens following an extensive renovation, about eight cones were found scattered about. Some were split apart with the seeds gouged out, a squirrel hoveringly guiltily nearby, perched on the burl at the base of the elephantine trunk. Others, green and whole, had rolled down to the main driveway, where they were being merrily kicked about by passing students. The year 2024 proved a mast year: 26 cones fell, and at least two more were visible high in the crown by mid-September.

Bunya bunya leaves at Kingscote Gardens. John Rawlings, 2003

Beyond campus, a pair of bunya bunyas stands at 811 Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto, with another pair in the median of Trinity Drive near Whitney in Menlo Park. Three grow beside the water tower at Holbrook-Palmer Park in Atherton. Two more are on the west side of El Camino Real in Redwood City, just north of James Avenue – their ferris wheel–like crowns visible from the upper deck of a train at the Redwood City station. Indeed, bunya bunya–spotting becomes an enjoyable pastime on drives through to central and southern California, where the tree is planted more frequently.

Name derivation: Araucaria – see A. araucana entry; bidwillii – J. C. Bidwill (1815–1853), Australian plant collector.