Nomad blackboard: Cloudy with a chance of pine cones

At Marimurtra Botanical Garden, we share our space with some of the oldest and most fascinating trees on the planet: the araucarias. Native to the southern hemisphere, these ‘living fossils’ are conifers that existed millions of years ago and still amaze us today with their majesty.

Among the species we have at the Garden, the Araucaria bidwillii, also known as bunya-bunya, stands out. It is a monumental tree from Queensland (Australia), which can exceed 40 metres in height and produces some of the largest pinecones in the world. Each one can weigh more than 10 kg and contains up to a hundred large edible pine nuts.

This year, 2025, has been special: our two specimens of A. bidwillii have produced around thirty pinecones, an exceptional figure compared to other years. In nature, this species tends to alternate years of low production with spectacular harvests, known as mast years. Several factors can influence this, such as the tree’s internal cycles, water availability and even major global climate patterns. This year, rainfall has been significantly higher than in recent years, and this may have contributed to this spectacular result.

So that everyone can discover them up close and safely, we have set up small display rafts under each tree, where you can see a whole pine cone, a bract and a pine nut. This is a unique opportunity to admire these natural gems up close, witnesses to an evolutionary history that connects us directly to the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Come and see them: this year, the Garden is treating us to a botanical spectacle that is not seen every day.