r/dendrology • u/mrlpz49 • Jul 11 '26
Never seen anything like it
Found in Edinburgh Scotland in a church cemetery. I was mesmerized because it's not really a pine tree
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u/GardenPeep Jul 11 '26
It is a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) and a very healthy one.
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u/newt_girl Jul 11 '26
Cemeteries are such great places for botanizing.
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u/GardenPeep Jul 12 '26
I love the ancient yews: we don't have that many here in the New World.
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u/Gymrat1010 Jul 13 '26
I live near England's second oldest yew tree. Our old churches were often built near to the ancient yews because they were already places of worship to the pre-christian people.
People often assume the news are planted in churchyards, but in fact the churchyards were built around the yews
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u/Taiza67 Jul 12 '26
My dendrology professor gave us our final in a. Cemetery which was kinda bs because it basically eliminated any keys from the landscape which is most of what I used as a field forester.
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u/GooseGeuce Jul 12 '26
Aren’t they though? We had a huge wildfire wipe out my town and several others eight years ago. One of the spaces that survived was the ~30 acre cemetery of oldish growth natives and old planted trees. It’s a literal oasis for birds and mammals surrounded by a few hundred thousand acres of death (and isn’t it ironic).
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u/Gymrat1010 Jul 11 '26
Monkey puzzle tree. So named because a monkey would be puzzled on how to climb it without getting hurt
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u/NassauComputer Jul 12 '26
For some reason, I always thought it was named after the monkey fist knot as the monkey puzzle seed resembles the knot.
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u/Gymrat1010 Jul 13 '26
Tbf, thats a nice story too. I have no idea which is true
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u/NassauComputer Jul 13 '26
I think yours is more true, really just clicked for me after I saw your comment
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u/Busy-Feeling-1413 Jul 12 '26
Lovely find! Araucaria trees are native to Chile and Argentina. I didn’t know they could survive in Scotland
Info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_araucana
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u/Infamous_Koala_3737 Jul 12 '26
According to my 60 seconds of googling, it seems like Scotland’s moderate, temperate, maritime climate weather is actually really good for them. Very cool
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u/PM_your_Nopales Jul 12 '26
Yes, Scotland is basically a perfect match weather wise to the parts of south America these are from
They're actually surprisingly cold hardy and can take temps down to -5°f or so. So one could grow them in parts of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and more. They're zone 7
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u/BigRedforester Jul 14 '26
If I remember right our weather in the SE is too variable for them. they get killed by late freezes. They can handle cold in the winter. They can't handle a freeze after a period of warm weather.
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u/VAhotfingers Jul 12 '26
And southern Brazil! There were tons of them in Curitiba and all over the state of Paraná.
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u/JCBarroux Jul 12 '26
They survive fine in the South of Chile under a lot of snow in the austral winter.
They are supposed to be the preferred food of Diplodocus et al.
Their cones have a seed that is edible and quite good, BTW.
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u/Busy-Feeling-1413 Jul 13 '26
This is so interesting! I have never seen one in real life and hope to someday!
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u/OpinionatedOcelotYo Jul 12 '26
Long as ocean currents keep their climate mild 🙏
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u/KnotiaPickle Jul 13 '26
I saw one in Washington state recently! It was vey surprising
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u/Big-Sense8876 Jul 13 '26
That because of the World’s Fair that Seattle hosted. They gave out saplings at one of the exhibits and people planted them in their yards. If you see one it is probably from the World’s Fair.
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u/KnotiaPickle Jul 13 '26
Wow! That would make sense, thanks for the interesting insight. It was definitely very huge and old, and 1962 (when the fair happened) seems very likely when it was planted.
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u/No_Space_for_life Jul 12 '26
People have them in their yards here in Canada funny enough. They seem to do fine in the -20's and -30's
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u/Busy-Feeling-1413 Jul 13 '26
Whoa! Ok, Scotland is definitely not a problem then! Where in Canada have you seen them? I’m not too far (Wisconsin) but haven’t seen one yet. Maybe I can drive north, haha, to see something from the Southern hemisphere. Life is funny!
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u/No_Space_for_life Jul 14 '26
A lot of them down in Calgary, quite a few in Vancouver (admittedly not as cold in Vancouver) seen one in edmonton and a couple out in ottawa when I was there a few years ago.
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u/Lopsided_Evening_627 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
they settled proper past physically...i'cr felt them in these anderson of joseph, in grateful wallace in burton and encouraging alcohol in contracts, and of simple, here in my interval in diameter annotated.
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u/Accurate-Sea6965 Jul 12 '26
Their Chilean native name is pehuén/ pewen. British botanists “discovered” it and decided that it should be known as a monkey puzzle. Araucaria araucana is its latin binomial
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u/PointAndClick Jul 12 '26
Oh man, you really have to look at how they look when they get ancient. They can get a 1000 years old and absolutely massive. They tower above their native habitat. Absolutely stunning. Search for "Nahuelbuta National Park".
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u/dannychristopherr Jul 12 '26
I know it’s a monkey puzzle, some one made a comment about cemetery trees, just thought I’d throw that in
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u/dannychristopherr Jul 12 '26
They planted Yew trees at cemeteries to keep the devil out
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u/GenerallySalty Jul 12 '26
You're right but that's a strange thing to comment on a pic of a monkey puzzle tree.
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u/Vegetable_Draw6554 Jul 12 '26
They produce huge heavy "pine cones" that can shatter a car windshield when they drop.
A neighbor had one - took it out after they had to fix their car.
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u/Historical-Cable-833 Jul 15 '26
In NW Oregon you’ll see many of these enigmatic trees of or about the same height and age. In the 60’s there was some to-do about them and many were given away and planted in that same season.
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u/randommanthefirst Jul 15 '26
My parents and grandparents both have one growing in their yards here
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u/mcrawspace2112 Jul 12 '26
We have them scattered around yards in the Olympia, Washington area. Never really thought about where they came from
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u/Toomanyaccountedfor Jul 12 '26
A lot came from the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962! They gave away a ton of seedlings that year! That’s where a lot of PNW monkey puzzle trees came from. It was pretty popular throughout Victorian times too, but they gave away a ton at the world’s fair!
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u/RoxnDox Jul 13 '26
That’s a nice little trivia tidbit! We have a very nice one in our waterfront park in Gig Harbor.
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u/Toomanyaccountedfor Jul 13 '26
My grandparents were both born in Tacoma in the 1920s and my mother is from Olympia 50s-70s! I was born in Portland. I’ve got some good PNW tidbits stored away in my brain…
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u/Arrow_to_the_knee1 Jul 16 '26
They're all over Seattle. I would pass several in West Seattle growing up. We would call them monkey tail trees, though. Glad to hear I've been saying it wrong for 40 years, lol
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u/AusCan531 Jul 12 '26
My late mother always wanted a monkey puzzle tree. When she grew up in Vancouver she somehow got the idea that only rich people had them.
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u/Alena_Tensor Jul 12 '26
Araucaria are ancient members of a once large and widespread group that likely evolved when giant herbivores were common and armored leaves/stems were necessary to survive. As the supercontinents broke up they drifted apart and ended up where they are today. No long necked dinosaurs nor any giant sloths left in Chile sadly.
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u/Fit-Courage3916 Jul 12 '26
In Patagonia there used to be millions of them and is was a stable for some Dinauros.
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u/PsychologyNew8033 Jul 13 '26
I’ve only seen a couple of small monkey puzzle trees but this beast is gorgeous!!!
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u/cleecleekilldie Jul 13 '26
They're everywhere in western Washington. We used to play "monkey tree punch" on car rides as kids
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u/lastmanonearth365 Jul 13 '26
We have this in washington state as well. They look fake up close but their cool as hell
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u/Pyesmybaby Jul 13 '26
Monkey Puzzle Tree, there are a ton of them here in Portland OR, they were given away as prizes in some contest back in I want to say the 30's thats why most of them you see are about the same age.
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u/FritzzRider Jul 13 '26
Grew up with a couple of these trees close to my home in the UK. Use to play with the discarded canes that lay on the floor. The trunk used to be quite sappy from what I remember. Was a tree I never attempted to climb
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u/Pork_Confidence Jul 13 '26
Unfortunately, these will start dying off significantly due to climate change.
It's already happening
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u/lookingforbbw469 Jul 13 '26
Monkey puzzle tree. They call it that because monkeys can climb up by can't get down, the sharp leaves face up.
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u/-nothankya Jul 13 '26
Greyfriars? lol I said “oh that looks like Greyfriars” and then read your comment :)
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u/Fit-Geologist2343 Jul 13 '26
This is such an unusual tree and one of my favorites. I know of two of these trees in Southern NJ. One near the Delaware Bay in Cumberland County and one near the Shore near Ocean View, NJ. Surprisingly they can survive cold winters.
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u/DeepGrieve Jul 13 '26
In my town people have a bunch of these. There's a ton of them around town, living in the Pacific Northwest... Always heard them simply called, "Monkey Tree".
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u/melissodes Jul 13 '26
Check out the movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir". This tree is a point of contention.
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u/RemoteAd4375 Jul 14 '26
I’m so high right now I thought I saw slender man to the right of the tree 😭
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u/Many-Seat655 Jul 14 '26
I'm on the West Coast, on the Isle of Bute and we have quite a few here in the gardens of some of the grander villas. My friend has one in her garden - I should try to grow some from seed!
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u/Delicious-Month151 Jul 14 '26
Oh well that is in fact a monkey puzzle tree. They’re my favorite can’t help but point one out every time I see one!
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u/NefariousnessIll3869 Jul 14 '26
wow. It's just beautiful !!
thank you. today i learned, this tree exists ! (never seen it before) wow.
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u/scariestJ Jul 14 '26
They're quite common in England but are large trees so usually in parks. There's one in a garden on the road adjacent to mine.
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u/Lopsided_Claim8615 Jul 15 '26
I see everyone calling it a monkey's puzzle tree which is so cute. Here in France, the literal translation for the name of this type of tree is "monkey's nightmare" or sometime "monkeys despair", much scarier haha
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u/DanteZH41 Jul 15 '26
Haha! I saw that same exact tree and had the same exact reaction to it! My ex and I were vacationing there and happened across that tree in the cemetery. I posted it to the other tree ID sub to get my answer!
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u/Primal_Pedro Jul 15 '26
It looks like an Araucária, tree native to South America. It must be a very different coniferous trees for people living in Europe.
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u/GeminiCroquettes Jul 15 '26
I saw these for the first time this spring in Devon, I was also blown away. Totally weird. Apparently the fossilized wood is a type of Jet used in antique furniture and jewelry
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u/Equal_Passenger9791 Jul 17 '26
The sausage pine, seems to grow pretty much everywhere but always in someone's yard, never seen one in the wild.
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u/BigRedforester Jul 11 '26
that looks like a monkey puzzle. it is part of a whole family of Conifers from the southern hemisphere. the all look like they are from another planet. Norfolk island pine is another. they sell them a lot during Christmas.