Name That Nut | Stories from the Bond Store

Story: Ian Brown, The Maryborough Storyteller. Illustration: Trevor Spohr, Bauple Nuts

To the born-and-bred, it's the Bauple Nut.

Now sometimes that’s spelt Boppel, or Bopple, and even Bahpul, since it is the phonetic rendering of what the original inhabitants called Mount Bauple, or Bau-bal, that rises above the middle reaches of Moonaboola, or the Mary River, and named in its turn for the frill-necked lizard. 

That’s where this particular nut has its genesis, and the original inhabitants knew it by other names, such as “ba-rum” – perhaps from a little further upriver, near today’s Lake Barumba, that before it was dammed was the main location of the triennial feast of another nut endemic to this region, and a staple in the diet of the original inhabitants, the Bunya. 

Probably the first European to encounter the Bauple Nut was Ludwig Leichhardt, in 1843, who described it botanically in his journal, giving the name the original inhabitants he had with him told him they called it – “Jindilli”, the J sounding as a Y. 

It will at other times be called the Bush Nut and the Queensland Nut, but got its botanical name in 1857, from botanist Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, for his friend John Macadam, a Victorian chemist and politician – the Macadamia!

In the Wide Bay, more trees can be found in backyards than are distributed naturally across its native region, and locals have always known that it took the Americans in Hawaii until the 1880s to commercially exploit: whatever you call it, it’s surely the Emperor of Nuts, blooming delicious, and born here. 
 

You can learn more about the Macadamia Nut industry, and more about Maryboprough's rich import and export history at The Bond Store.