Danger: massive falling pinecones

Mayor Diane Blackwood of Warragul, east of Melbourne, Australia, has issued a warning about massive pine cones falling from a tree in the town center: "They are the size of a watermelon, falling literally out of the sky from potentially 20 metres high. So you wouldn't want to be under one, I tell you."
"Warning over watermelon-sized pine cones" (ABC.net.au, via Fortean Times)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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CountZero

Now if that was the UK the city council would be out with the chainsaws and have every tree cut down.
- awjt
  
  Exactly. People are friggin NUTS these days because we have the power to be. What about… put up a fence? NOoooooo, let’s cut all the trees down instead. It’s safer that way.
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    While I agree that cutting down the trees is overreacting it does make a little bit of sense that people go friggin nuts over this because those are some big friggin nuts.
Baldhead

Sure, sure mate. That’s what you said about Drop Bears.
Godfree

Not the dreaded DEATH BY BUNYA!
Jason Sutor

Dude, thats no pine cone, its a Bunya Bunya cone. (Araucaria bidwillii). The seeds roasted are yummy. Being from Australia they should know better than to plant them in town. The 10+ lbs cones can easily kill upon impact. Here in California they are growing and the ones planted 20+ years ago are maturing and will soon produce cones. We may have a problem here too.
- Pedro Feliz-Hombre
  
  It has begun… about 6 years ago on my street in Los Angeles, an auracaria dropped a cone onto a parked car. The entire top of the car was dented about 8 inches deep. The tree was cut down soon after.
- ocker3
  
  Seeing as the tree is 120 yeras old, perhaps the town came to the tree?
Stonewalker

In Australia even the TREES want you dead.
RainyRat

“falling literally out of the sky”?
They fail either meteorology or biology, I’m not sure which.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

Sometimes I think that every time someone says, “Everything’s bigger in Texas” the entire continent of Australia laughs.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WIH6O3KGAELLONCRNVD72XBWDM Robert Sanders
  
  Texas meant tall-tales.
http://twitter.com/Dsilkotch Dsilkotch

As a casual American observer, it seems to me that literally everything in Australia wants to kill you.
RJ

Imagine the pesto sauce you could make with bunya pine nuts.
Dan Richards

literally.
http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt

Jeeze, and here I thought that in Oz the trees just threw apples at you….
robotnik

‘Shopped. I can tell from the ovuliferous scales.
Reece James

This is a Bunya Nut, from a Bunya Pine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_bidwillii

It has been a few years (about 20) since we have had enough water for them to fruit around Sydney. I guess this is why the poster is surprised.

When I was in pre-school (the last time I’ve seen one fruit) there was one in the parking lot. One of the nuts took out a Volvo! i.e. it punctured through the roof and embedded itself in the passenger seat, breaking every window as it crushed the roof.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=north+richmond+pre+school&hl=en&ll=-33.578937,150.714381&spn=0.007276,0.008433&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=62.072022,69.082031&hq=pre+school&hnear=North+Richmond+New+South+Wales&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=-33.578937,150.714381&panoid=7fGp5h1PoBMK46WNAxZkEw&cbp=12,128.49,,0,-1.6
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  Yeah I was a guest at a wedding on the banks of the Torrens in Adelaide last weekend. There were little pine cones falling all around us. One every minute at least. I haven’t seen that happen in a long time.
Phillip O’Reilly

Indigenous Australians feasted mightily on these when in season. Same family as the Monkey Puzzle tree. I would rather have one of these than a Volvo anyway.
http://twitter.com/dmuren Dominic Muren

The crazy thing is, the Bunya-Bunya isn’t even the biggest seed-cone tree in the world!! The Encephalartos manikensis cycad native to Africa is even bigger, but thankfully, only grows up to about 2 meters tall, so the seed drop would only kind of kill you :)

This nugget of awesomeness is from Wayne’s Word, one of the best old-school internet sites (basically a blog before blogs) for amazing plant facts. Don’t believe me? Here’s more on the Bunya-Bunya — apparently, Petrified forest national monument has fossilized trunks of this tree from before it died out in North America!
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ecoph27.htm

Or, check out this page of floating seeds of the Caribbean!!
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pldec398.htm

Or this send-up of California’s “Jumping Galls” — I saw these last hear at the Davis Arboredum, and searching on them led me here:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pldec97.htm
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5275XMMKPDDVVWWDATSTQGWA2M geoff

When these cones open up each pine nut is about the size and shape of a large Brazil nut. I think they have a shell covering something like a roasted chestnut though. Its been a while since I have seen one as they are not common in my neck of the woods – only grown as specimens down here. The trees grow very tall and you would get well clobbered if one of these babies hit you. They are native to Queensland and were considered a delicacy. In season Aboriginal tribes would travel even from as far away as Victoria, passing through other tribes territory on their way to enjoy the bountiful harvest, the northern host tribes making them welcome. Apparently the hosts were also not averse to drawing off the odd “out-of-towner” for a bit of nourishment. Yep they was cannibals. There are a few records of shipwrecked folk being despatched in the same way.
Cardinal Biggles

We’ve just been sent a ration pack of them- see picture. The cd is in the bowl to give an idea of their size. To paraphrase Mr Dundee, ‘That’s not a pine nut; THIS is a pine nut’. They need to be boiled for 30 minutes or so before use, then peeled.

Not surprising that they weren’t aware of the bunya cone threat. Warrugal is way down south in Victoria- 1500 km from the normal bunya pine territory in Queensland, where small children learn about bunya pine risks from an early age. That said, bunyas are adaptable- there are a few growing happily in frosty Canberra.

Bunya pesto is well known- this is the recipe they’re destined for-
http://www.abc.net.au/local/recipes/2005/05/26/1377215.htm