The Bunya-Bunya of Jardim da Cordoaria

The tallest thing in the Jardim da Cordoaria is Australian. The bunya pine here runs to roughly 40 metres, a dark dome standing clear above the plane trees, on a straight trunk 3.6 metres round. Araucaria bidwillii grows naturally in a few pockets of southeast Queensland and nowhere else. The leaves are stiff, glossy and sharp enough to draw blood, arranged in spirals along the branch, and the tree has a habit that made it famous at home. It drops cones the size of a football weighing several kilograms, which is why bunya groves were gathering places and why nobody sensible parks under one in season. Local tree histories put this one in the ground between 1867 and 1869, when the garden was laid out. The register, measuring in 2004, recorded 130 years, which works out at roughly 150 today. The planting dates would make it a few years older still. Two independent routes to the same decade is about as good as tree dating gets. It was classified in 2005, in the same decree as the avenue of plane trees a few steps away, so this small garden gives you two protected entries in one stop. Stand in the plane tunnel and look up at the far end: the araucaria is the thing breaking the roofline.