It's the size of a watermelon, spiky like an echidna, filled with edible seeds and looking at you from 40 metres up. Bunya pine cone, come on down!
It's dropping season for the large soft-shelled cones, which fall from the canopy of the native Araucaria bidwillii, a close relative of the prehistoric Wollemi pine.
There are more than 60 of the ancient pines in the Australian Botanic Gardens at Mount Annan, in Sydney's southwest, and staff recently found a cone weighing 5.8kg, inching close to last year's record 6.2kg specimen.
The evergreen Bunya hails from Queensland, grows 35-45 metres high, can live for 600 years and has been sacred to indigenous Australians as a source of food, kindling, timber and fibre.
Most Bunya cones weigh between 3 and 8kg but can be as heavy as 10kg. They're also 20-35cm in diameter and contain 50-100 edible seeds.
Dropping season is in its second week and will continue for another five or six weeks, with Australian Botanic Gardens curator manager John Siemon saying the cones are starting to draw attention.
"I walked across the lawn with one and quite literally 15-20 people stopped and turned. I'm sure they were thinking 'what on earth is that?'" he told AAP this week.
"They're like a watermelon in scale but with an echidna overlay to them, this spikiness."
The leaves of the Bunya pine are also naturally spiky, preventing people from standing directly under them but Mr Siemon says signs warning of falling cones are placed near the base of the trees.
He said the edible seeds can be eaten raw, roasted or boiled and have been used in pesto, baking and salads.
The pine cones are used by the Australian Botanic Gardens for indigenous educational purposes.
