The Probert Encyclopaedia of Nature

ARAUCARIA

Araucaria is a genus of Coniferae with evergreen leaves, of a singularly geometric habit of growth, belonging to the southern hemisphere. The species are large trees with pretty large, stiff, flattened, and generally imbricated leaves, verticillate spreading branches, and bearing large cones, each scale having a single large seed. The species best known in Britain is Araucaria imbricdta (popularly known as the Chili pine or puzzle-monkey), which is quite hardy. It is a native of the mountains of southern Chili, where it forms vast forests and yields a hard durable wood. Its seeds are eaten when roasted. The Moreton Bay pine of New South Wales (Araucaria Cunninghamii) supplies a valuable timber used in house and boat building, in making furniture, and in other carpenter work. A species, Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine abounds in several of the South Sea Islands, where it attains a height of 67 metres with a circumference of 9 meters, and is described as one of the most beautiful of trees. Its foliage is light and graceful, and quite unlike that of Araucaria imbricata, having nothing of of its stiff formality. Its timber is of some value, being white, tough, and close-grained.
Research Araucaria