I took this picture a couple of years ago while browsing around in the “Palmengarten” in Frankfurt, Germany. What a fantastic botanical garden.
photo by John Nelson
Some trees are good for tree-houses. Some trees are not. Guess which category this one fits into?
It’s a conifer, and like all conifers will produce no flowers. Rather the seeds (and pollen) are produced on the scales of cone-like structures…which can conveniently be called “cones.” (“Strobilus” is the fancy word for a cone.) Most conifers are evergreen: the northern Larch and our stately bald cypress are conifers, but these two lose all of their foliage each winter. This week’s mysterious conifer is an evergreen species which will make a stout trunk if given enough time, and its massive limbs will be adorned with somewhat triangular leaves. The limbs typically grow out of the trunk in rings, or whorls. Branches will be completely covered by the foliage, with the leaves overlapping each other all the way to the tip of the stem. The broad-based leaf blades are very tough, almost like hard plastic, and they are very sharply pointed at their ends. If that’s not impressive enough, how about this: the margins of the leaf blades are sharp, almost like a knife blade. So, we might imagine that this would be a nice tree to look at, but not very good for little boys or girls to climb around in. No good for tree-houses. Even for squirrels!
This unusual plant is one of about twenty closely related species, all native to the southern hemisphere. This particular species occurs naturally in forests of Chile and Argentina, where it becomes a very tall tree, forming dense forests. The trees are either male or female, and of course, it’s the female trees that will produce big seed cones.
You can see this tree grown in botanical gardens and arboreta in various parts of the world, including North America and Europe. The plants do well in cultivation, once established, and seem to thrive in cool climates. As you might expect, one of these trees with any size to it generates plenty of interest, and conversation. Some people think the massive, ropy branches look like the necks of scaly dragons, or dinosaurs. And, of course, those knife-like leaves get a lot of respectful attention.
There actually is a connection with dinosaurs. This species, and its closest relatives, can be thought of as “living fossils.” They show up in the fossil record during the Jurassic period, some 150 million (or so) years ago. Some of those dinosaurs had rather brontosaurus-sized appetites, and were fond of nibbling whatever vegetation --or each other-- happened to be at hand. For the salad-lovers, there were plenty of ferns and fern-like plants, many of which reached tree-size. Our Mystery Plant presumably evolved its fearsomely prickly foliage as a way of deterring ravenous reptilian jaws. Of course, there aren’t many dinosaurs for them to contend with now...but there are those pesky kids!
[Answer: “Monkey-puzzle tree," Araucaria araucana]
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John Nelson is the retired curator of the A. C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina in Columbia SC. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, visit www.herbarium.org or emailjohnbnelson@sc.rr.com.