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Statement of Significance

The site of Brisbane City Botanic Gardens was selected as a public garden in 1828 by New South Wales Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser, three years after the establishment of the European settlement. Originally the garden was planted with food crops to feed the convicts. In 1855, a portion of the land was declared a 'botanic reserve' and Walter Hill was appointed as curator. The Queensland Heritage Register describes the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens as 'the most significant, non-aboriginal cultural landscape in Queensland having a continuous horticultural history since 1828, without any significant loss of land area or change in use over time.' It incorporates Brisbane's most mature gardens and features many rare and unusual species of plants. The Black Bean is native to the east coast of Australia in Queensland and New South Wales, and to the Pacific islands of Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It has large poisonous seeds, and fumes when wood turning. The Aborigines made the poisonous seeds edible by cracking them and soaking in running water for long periods, then drying and roasting them. The tree produces high quality cabinet timber and when the Speaker’s Chair in the British House of Commons was destroyed during an air raid in 1941, the Australian government paid for a replica of the Speaker’s Chair at the Provisional Parliament House and presented it to the British House of Commons in 1951. It was carved by British craftsmen out of black bean and had ‘The Gift of Australia’ inscribed across the back.
This tree is a fine example of a species native to the east coast of Australia that produces beautiful timber and it makes an important contribution to the rainforest section of this heritage garden.
It is located on the northern edge of the rainforest section of the gardens.