4 
The Queensland Naturalist 
January, 1939 
included in this species. The individual flowers, which 
are wholly pale green except for the dark internal mark- 
ings, are no larger than in the type, and the labellum and 
column are completely identical. (For Bailey’s descrip- 
tion of D. Schneiderae, see “Queensland Flora,” vol. v., 
p. 1531.) Bailey gives the Darlington Range as the 
habitat; the species has since been collected in several 
other localities on both sides of the Queensland — New 
South Wales border. It grows high up on branches of 
the Hoop Pine and other large forest trees, but has also 
been seen on rocks. The Mackay discovery is more than 
500 miles north of these localities; and the form of the 
plant is so distinctive that we think it should be known 
as B. Schneiderae var. major. 
Pseudobulbi 2 — 2^ cm. longi, 1 — 1^ cm. lati. Folia 
4 cm. x 5 mm. Racemi 14 — 17 cm. longi, cum floribus 
15 — 24. Flores pallidi parvique. 
THE ROMANCE OF THE BUNYA TREE. 
By H. E. Young, M.Sc.Agr. 
With the establishment of a settlement at Moreton 
Bay, the existence of a tree, which was known as the 
“Bunnia Bunina” to the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
neighbouring country, became definitely accepted, 
although its exact nature was not established until some 
years later. The fame of the periodic “bunnia” feasts 
spread to the white settlers, and their curiosity as to the 
exact nature of the tree was whetted. 
The first record of a white man having seen the trees 
is on November 29th, 1823. On this day John Oxley, the 
Surveyor-General, in the ship “Mermaid” anchored at 
the southern entrance to Pumic Stone River, which is now 
called Pumice Stone Passage, and which separates Bribie 
Island from the mainland. His anchorage was at the 
southern entrance to the passage in Moreton Bay. Here 
he encountered the convict castaways, Pamphlet and Fin- 
negan, who, in company with two others named Parsons 
and Thompson, had set out from Sydney by boat to go to 
111 a war ra for cedar. A gale arose whilst they w T ere on 
their way, and they lost their bearings, and eventually 
were wrecked on Moreton Island several hundred miles 
north of where they thought they were. Thompson died 
of thirst during the voyage. The three survivors, with 
the exception of Parsons, “who was absent at a “bunnia 
feast,” were able to show Oxley the Brisbane River, and 
