This is a member of the conifer family of Araucariaceae, the Monkey Puzzle Tree or Northfolk Island Pine Family, that is mostly found in the Southern Hemisphere. It is native to the Queensland area of Australia in the Bunya Mountains and around. Its scientific name came from John Carne Bidwill who discovered it for western science in 1842 and sent specimens back to the famous Kew Gardens in merry old England. This species or very close to it existed during the Mesozoic & Jurassic Eras, and some other species of the section called Bunya existed in South America and Europe. The male cones appear in April and mature in September-October and get about 8 inches long. The female cones also found on the same tree get huge of up to 22 pounds containing 50 to 100 seeds. (It seems sort of like a coniferous Osage Orange horse-apple.) The thin but tough shell splits when boiled or put in fire and then the edible kernels taste like chestnuts. The Aboriginal people have been eating the seed for a very long time and even have a festival concerning this food source. The seed takes a long time to germinate of 3 to 6 months. The tree grows a little more than 1 foot/year. I took two photos of a still young but maturing tree at Flamingo Gardens west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida in February 2022. I touched the wide needles and they are painful like the Monkey Puzzle Tree, though it is said that when young they are soft.

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