Boy-o-boy-tree
Thursday, 22 May 2008
I was perhaps a wee bit boasting over the weekend when I said that I knew what this tree is called. Then I doubted myself (quietly, in private), so I thought I’d better look it up.
Common (English) name: monkey puzzle tree. Scientific name: Araucaria araucana. New common name: pehuén (from Mapuche). Native of the south-central Andes, both east and west slopes (says the web).
Turns out I had the name right, but didn’t know the coolest data-bit: this specimen is a male!
Ancillary data-bit: these trees are cousins (relatively speaking) of some of the trees fossilized in the Petrified Forest in Arizona.
For more info, here’s the wikipedia entry….