In the fall of 1961, I gathered with a group of other kids across the street from Petaluma’s Carnegie Library, to watch a man standing atop a long ladder extending up from a fire truck. He was knocking seed cones the size of pineapples from the Bunya-Bunya tree outside the library. In a normal year the tree generated only a handful of cones. That year it produced 50.[1]
A few months later, Elizabeth Burbank had the 100-foot Bunya-Bunya beside her house cut down. She had grown tired of its cones crashing through the roof, breaking telephone lines and threatening visitors.[2] Her late husband, Santa Rosa horticulturist Luther Burbank, planted the tree in the 1880s, when wealthy estate owners came to his nursery shopping for exotic trees to showcase in their gardens.
A majestic, dome-topped evergreen conifer from Australia, the Bunya-Bunya, or Araucaria bidwillii, fit the bill. The tree was a living fossil, its roots extending back to the Jurassic era. Along with its genetic cousin, the Monkey Puzzle Tree, the Bunya-Bunya became all the rage among Victorian tree connoisseurs, including Addie Atwater, wife of a Petaluma banker.[3]
Atwater planted a Bunya-Bunya in front of her house on the northwest corner of Fourth and E streets, across from Walnut Park, where it still stands today. An early advocate of city beautification, in 1896 she and Petaluma journalist Rena Shattuck co-founded the Petaluma Ladies Improvement Club.
The club’s initial impetus was cleaning up Petaluma’s two public parks—Walnut Park and Hill Plaza Park (today’s Penry Park)—which were being used at the time for trash and livestock grazing. After transforming them into inviting public spaces, the club ventured forth as “municipal housekeepers” in planting trees and installing walking sidewalks throughout town.[4]
In 1904, Atwater, then a wealthy widow, sold a deeply discounted parcel of land at Fourth and B streets to the city for the new Carnegie Library.[5] The Ladies Improvement Club assumed responsibility for landscaping the grounds. In the winter of 1906, they solicited local nurseryman William Stratton, known as California’s “Eucalyptus King” for his early cultivation of the eucalyptus tree from Australia, to donate 11 ornamental trees to their library plantings, one of which is believed to have been the Bunya-Bunya.[6]
The long-term manifestations of the Bunya-Bunya were relatively unknown to the Victorians. Mature trees grow to between 100 and 150 feet tall, with trunks measuring as much as five feet wide. Its timber is highly valued as “tonewood” in making musical stringed instruments such as guitars and ukuleles.
It takes up to 14 years before the trees begin to generate seed cones weighing between 10 and 20 pounds, each of which contains between 50 and 100 edible nuts ranging up to 2 1/2 inches long. [7] Aboriginal peoples relied upon them for sustenance, eating them raw or roasted, or else storing them underground in wet mud, which is believed to have improved the flavor as well as extended their shelf life.
Europeans found their flavor similar to chestnuts. They liked to boil them with their corned beef. Boiling remains a favorite means of preparing them today, for use in stews, salads or stir-fried dishes.[8]
But not everyone is a fan of the Bunya Bunya. That became clear in 1977, when the city of Petaluma opened a new public library on East Washington Street, and converted the former library into the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum.
The architect in charge of the conversion flagged the 80-foot tall Bunya Bunya for removal, noting the severe drought that year had caused it to precariously lean forward. Bunya-Bunya critics agreed, citing not only the inherent danger of its diving bomb cones, but the sharp, serrated leaves of its shedded branches, which made for formidable weapons in the hands of children playing war.
After tree-lovers rallied in protest, the city conducted a thorough arboreal examination of the tree, finding it to be healthier than assumed, and sparing it from the axe.[9]
In 1991, Ross Parkerson, a board member of the Petaluma Historical Museum Association and a former city planner, led a group of fellow tree advocates in convincing the Petaluma city council to protect the city’s oldest trees by passing the Heritage Tree Ordinance. The museum’s Bunya-Bunya was among the first to fall under its protection, along with the large oak and giant Sequoia behind the museum.[10]
The next year, the city created a Tree Advisory Committee, appointing Parkerson as its founding chairman. Thirty years later, it continues to consult with the city on tree management and preservation.[11]
While I could find no record of anyone having ever been clobbered by a falling seed cone from the museum’s Bunya-Bunya, since that day in 1961, when as a young boy I witnessed the tree’s big cones being knocked to the ground, I always look up when I pass the museum. It’s partly out of respect for the 116-year-old heritage tree, and partly out of personal caution.
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A version of this article appears in the Fall/Winter 2022 newsletter of the Petaluma Museum Association.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Real Monkey Would Have Helped,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 23, 1961.
[2] “Burbank ‘Monkey’ Tree Coming Down,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 6, 1961.
[3] “The Trees in California’s Cityscapes,” California Garden and Landscape History Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, Spring 2013; “August Tree of the Month: Bunya Bunya,” edhat, Santa Barbara.
https://www.edhat.com/news/august-tree-of-the-month-bunya-bunya
[4] “The Splendid Work of the Ladies Improvement Club,” Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1907.
[5] “Carnegie Library Cornerstone Laid,” Petaluma Argus, June 10, 1904.
[6] “Ladies Improvement Club,” Petaluma Courier, December 30, 1905; “Improvement Club Meeting,” Petaluma Courier, October 3, 1906; “Made Donation of Trees,” Petaluma Courier, March 16, 1907; “W.A.T. Stratton’s Book on the Eucalyptus,” Petaluma Argus, November 15, 1907.
[7] Alistair Watt, “Tree of the Year: Araucaria bidwillii,” International Dendrology Society, 2018.
http://www.dendrology.org/publications/tree-of-the-year/araucaria-bidwillii/; “The Bunya-Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii),” Permaculture News, November 27, 2013.https://www.permaculturenews.org/2013/11/27/the-bunya-bunya-pine-araucaria-bidwillii/
[8] The Bunya-Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii),” Permaculture News, November 27, 2013; Ian Wright, “Bunya Pines are Ancient, Delicious, and Possibly Deadly,” The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/bunya-pines-are-ancient-delicious-and-possibly-deadly-96003
[9] “Monkey Puzzle Tree Wins Life,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 7, 1978.
[10] “Three Trees Look to be First Protected Under Heritage Law,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 25, 1991; “E. Ross Parkerson: Artist, Planner,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 18, 1991; “City Tree Panel in Full Bloom,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 7, 1992; “The Group Offers Neighborhoods Re-Leaf,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 24, 1993.
[11] “City Tree Panel in Full Bloom,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 7, 1992; “The Group Offers Neighborhoods Re-Leaf,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 24, 1993.
