Notas:

• Etnográfica:
  It is the preferred wood for charcoal. They eat the bunya drink out of the seeds, which is a lot of work. People also eat the plain boiled iibu as a snack. The seeds are also parched and eaten with the skin (not the shell) like roasted nuts, or parched and then ground to make "coffee." Ibu oil is both medicinal (for asthma and to anoint sore joints) and used by some in the bush for frying food. To make the oil you boil down the "maia" from the boiled iibu. (The maia is the iibu "trash" that sticks to the pot side. When you cook in coconut milk, there is also maia that collects around the pot side, thicker than, but similar to, the foamy residue that collects around the edge of a pot when rice starts to boil.) Iibu is harvested in dry weather Feb.- March.The seeds will last a couple of months after dropping, so they do not have to be processed immediately. Iibu is a major food source for macaw parrots, and the increasing disappearance of the tree has contributed to a great decline in their numbers (2008--and they were not that common even around Monkey Point/Cane Creek in the 1970s.) The increasing human population has lead to more burning of iibu trees for coal, and a lot of the Mestizos also simply cut them down when clearing the forest land to plant or for cows and don't use the trees for anything. As of 2009, the Mestizos have not yet started exploiting the seed. The shells are sometimes burned instead of firewood as they catch up quickly and burn very hot. Some people do not like to cook with iibu, though, because it "blacks up the pots" too much. The shells are also burned at night, sometimes with wood, or if available, with termite nests, as a deterrent to mosquitos and sandflies. The tree has pretty purple flowers that float down the creek when they drop. There are also many beliefs regarding the tree and its "owner."