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‘This Noble Tree’: J. C. Bidwill and the Naming of the Bunya Pine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Thom Blake
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Extract

The bunya pine was given its scientific name Araucaria bidwillii in 1843 by Sir William Hooker, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Hooker named the tree after John Came Bidwill, a colleague who had been in Australia and who provided Hooker with a detailed description of the tree and specimens of a young plant and samples of a branch and nut. Controversy has surrounded the ‘discovery’ and naming of the bunya, not the least that Andrew Petrie was the first to identify the tree and it was tentatively called Pinus petrieana. This controversy is discussed briefly elsewhere in this journal by John Huth. The purpose of this paper is to examine Bidwill's role in identifying the bunya and whether Hooker was justified in his decision to honour Bidwill in the nomenclature.

Type
Special Issue: On The Bunya Trail
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , November 2002 , pp. 39 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

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References

Notes

1 See Huth, John, ‘Introducing the Bunya pine - a noble denizen of the scrub’ in this volume.Google Scholar

2 Herbert, D. A., ‘Bidwill, John Carne’ in Pike, D. ed., Australian Dictionary of Biography (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), 98.Google Scholar

3 Mabberley, D. J., ‘Bidwill of the bunya-bunya’, Curtis’ Botantical Magazine, 18, 1, (2001): 33.Google Scholar

4 Doran, Dimity Cryle, Denis, The Petrie Family: Building Colonial Brisbane (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992), 22–51.Google Scholar

5 C. to Colonial Secretary 13 January 1849, AONSW 49/1714.Google Scholar

6 Simpson, Stephen to Colonial Secretary, 30 May 1842, in Langevad, G. ed., Simpson Letterbook: Cultural and Historical Records of Queensland (Brisbane: Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland, 1979), 2.Google Scholar

7 Russell, Henry, The Genesis of Queensland (Sydney: Turner and Henderson, 1888). The Wardian case was invented by Dr Nathanial Ward in 1829. It enabled delicate plants to be transported over long distances without drying out. (Daniel Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 212).Google Scholar

8 Bidwill, J. S. to Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands, 30 May 1851, AONSW 4/7173 51/43.Google Scholar

9 Bidwill, J. S. to Sir William Hooker, 1 July 1843, Kew Gardens, Australian letters, 1834–51, Vol 43.Google Scholar

10 Hooker, W. J., ‘Figures and descriptions of a new species of Araucaria from Moreton Bay, detacted by J. T. Bidwill Esq’, London Journal of Botany, vol ii (1843): 498–99.Google Scholar

11 This likely a transcription error on Hooker's part. In the letter from which Hooker quotes, Bidwill says it was called ‘Bunya bunya or Banya Banya’ (J. S. Bidwill to Sir William Hooker, 1 July 1843, Kew Gardens, Australian letters, 1834-51, Vol 43).Google Scholar

12 Hooker, W. J., ‘Figures and descriptions of a new species of Araucaria from Moreton Bay, detected by J. T. Bidwill Esq’, London Journal of Botany ii (1843): 502.Google Scholar

13 Herbert, ‘Bidwill, John Carne’, 98.Google Scholar

14 Fitzroy, quoted in Gilbert, Lionel, The Royal Botanic Gardens: a History 1816-1985 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 72.Google Scholar

15 Gilbert, , The Royal Botanic Gardens, 73.Google Scholar

16 Bidwill, J. C. to Colonial Secretary, 30 December 1848, John Oxley Library, A2.48/290.Google Scholar

17 Bidwill, J. C. to Colonial Secretary, 23 January 1849, AONSW, 4/2842 49/1917.Google Scholar

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24 C. Moore to Colonial Secretary, 27 May 1854, AONSW, 4/7173 54/666.Google Scholar

25 C. Moore to Colonial Secretary, 27 May 1854, AONSW, 4/7173 54/666.Google Scholar

26 Although Petrie failed to be recognised for his part in the ‘discovery’ of the bunya, he received ample recognition for his expeditions in South-East Queensland and his contribution to the development of early Brisbane in the naming of streets, suburbs, mountains, creeks and other physical features. This did not stop the Petrie family from still pursuing the claim that Andrew Petrie deserved recognition for his role. In 1906, Andrew Petrie's grand-daughter engaged in correspondence with J. H. Maiden, the Director of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, about the respective claims of Petrie and Bidwill (Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May, 9, 18 and 20 June 1906).Google Scholar