Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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To Collect So Small A Berry
With Facility, And In Abundance, The Natives Cut A Rounded Tray Of Thin
Bark, Two Or Three Feet Long, And Six Or Eight Inches Wide, Over This
They Lift Up The Plant, Upon Which The Fruit Grows, And Shake The Berries
Into It.
When a sufficiency has been collected, the berries are skilfully
tossed into the air, and separated from the leaves and dirt.
The natives
are very fond of this fruit, which affords them an inexhaustible resource
for many weeks. In an hour a native could collect more than he could use
in a day.
The other sorts of fruits and berries are numerous and varied, but do not
merit particular description.
[Note 73: Mr. Simpson gives the following account of the Bunya Bunya, a
fruit-bearing tree lately discovered on the N.E. coast of New
Holland.
"Ascending a steep hill, some four miles further on, we passed
through a bunya scrub, and for the first time had an opportunity of
examining this noble tree more closely. It raises its majestic head above
every other tree in the forest, and must, therefore, frequently reach the
height of 250 feet; the trunk is beautifully formed, being as straight as
an arrow, and perfectly branchless for above two-thirds of its height;
branches then strike off, nearly at right angles from the trunk, forming
circles which gradually diminish in diameter till they reach the summit,
which terminates in a single shoot; the foliage shining, dark green, the
leaves acutely pointed and lanceolate, with large green cones, the size
of a child's head, hanging from the terminal branches in the fruiting
season (January). It is, too, very remarkable that the bunya tree,
according to the natives, is nowhere to be met with but in these parts;
it is, however, there is no doubt, a species of the araucaria genus, well
known in South America; the timber, when green, is white, fine grained
and very tough, but whether it retains these qualities when dry, has not
yet been determined.
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