Bunya

This is a bunya tree. Maybe the hand reaching skyward is trying to pick the bunya nuts which is a much better idea than waiting underneath for the 10kg cluster to fall on your head.

In past times the Aboriginal custodians each looked after a tree and were the only ones allowed to climb the tall trunks and shake the branches until the nuts fell to the ground. Every third year, when the crop was most plentiful the custodians would invite the neighbouring tribes over for a party - until the white settlers discovered the value of the timber crop and decimated the rainforest, taking only the straightest part of the trunk and leaving three-quarters of the tree to rot. Now it is a conservation area and plans are being made to reinstate the Bunya Festival but the Aboriginal people seem strangely invisible so one wonders what part they will play.