There are more nuts in Australia besides just the macadamia and the bunya. You only have to walk along Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne at three a.m. on a Saturday morning to see the many assorted varieties we have roaming the streets, but these are not of the type that can be dipped in chocolate or roasted in a campfire as is the case with the macadamias and bunyas.

There are two types of macadamia trees from which you can obtain the nuts. One is Macadamia integrifolia a native to rainforest areas in southeast Queensland, naturally occurring close to running water in areas like the Tallebudgera Valley and Currumbin Valleys on the Gold Coast. Macadamia tetraphylla is native to southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales where it is also grown commercially around Mullumbimby, Coorabell and probably as far west as Nimbin, where a different type of nut prevails known as the 70s love-child-flower-power- nature-worshipping-feral-alternative-solar-powered-composting-toilet nut.

Pictured below is a plantation of macadamia trees on a road which leads to Coorabell, or some such place, west of Byron Bay. The nut requires backpackers like pollen from a sunflower requires butterflies. That is, for the pollen to move it is helpful for it to be stuck to a butterfly, or bee, or even a 70s love-child-flower-power- nature-worshipping-feral-alternative-solar-powered-composting-toilet nut, which/ who can then transport it to another sunflower and help with pollinating. Backpackers do not necessarily help with macadamia pollination unless they stick their fingers in honey and walk around when a macadamia tree when it is flowering and stick their fingers in the flower then go over to another flower and do the same thing resulting, again, in pollination. Backpackers do however often help with collecting the nuts from the tree, or around the base, when they are mature - the nuts, not the backpackers, who may or may not be mature. Backpackers do this because a.) that week the petrol is too expensive for the macadamia collecting machine. b.) that week the macadamia machine is broken. c.) it is raining and the farmer doesn't want to get the macadamia machine wet. or d.) the farmer has gone to the pub and can't be bothered pushing the macadamia machine around.

Macadamia Trees growing in rows on the way to Coorabell or Nimbin or somewhere out that way

You can grow macadamia trees from macadamia seeds, which are in fact the macadamia nuts, unroasted and with shell till intact. You can get this seed from the macadamia plantations but if you don't want to risk getting shot for trespassing on "my damn property!" then you should steer clear of those places and never accept chocolate coated macadamias or car rides from anyone who offers you a chocolate coated macadamia.

A Bunya Bunya Pine tree growing in Melbourne Botanical Gardens by a structure and some other Trees

Bunya bunya pines are not like macadamias in that they are seldomley grown commercially or in Hawaii, where the first commercial crops of macadamias were grown in the first place, and also where surfing was invented, which is a popular past time in the native range of bunya bunyas which is the Bunya Bunya national park somewhere near Malaney in Queensland. Whilst surfing is popular in this area it is only actually practiced some distant to the east where the ocean meets the beach and forms waves. No such phenomenon has been observed in the Malaney area for most of the last million or so years since bunya bunyas first appeared in the area and the forty odd thousand years since man first inhabited the area and began eating the bunya nuts in what was described in the language of the time as a "bunya eating festival" which revolved around the eating of the delicious nuts which taste a little bit like a chestnut and which are also floury and kind of big and contained in an even bigger pine cone which is a feature of many trees which originate back in the Jurassic, or similar "assic" period a long long time ago before god was made.

If you wish to collect the nuts the best time to do this is around February or March, when the huge green cones fall from the trees onto the ground without any assistance whatsoever from the afore mentioned backpackers. The nuts are obtained by simply jumping on the cone vigorously, or whacking it with a cricket bat, and sifting through the wreckage to find the little brown kernels which are about the size of a bunya bunya nut. The nut has a firm casing which is best roasted before attempting to remove it. Bunya nuts can be gathered from the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, Fitzroy Gardens, Fitzroy (by the Exhibition Centre) and at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens (by the river of the same name) though if you don't want some garden employee driving after you in their little garden vehicles yelling something like, "you can get arrested for stealing things from the botanical gardens" then I suggest that you don't get seen doing this.

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Copyright J.R.Atwood 2007