 The
Bedgebury National Pinetum in Kent reports the following
extraordinary fact on their website: "The Monkey Puzzle tree
is a conifer and there are now more Monkey Puzzle trees growing in
gardens around Britain than in their native country of
Chile!"
Name:
There are no monkeys indigenous to its native land and the name
derives from the fact that its unusual large spiny leaves, which
also exude from the trunk, would even make it a puzzle for a
monkey how to climb up the tree.
Cultivation:
Monkey
Puzzle is surprisingly tolerant of many soil types as its popular
use in gardens here, there and everywhere testifies. In its native
land it preferred well-drained, volcanic soil. It makes a good
seaside tree, because it is tolerant of salt-laden winds and can
cope with maritime exposure. It thrives in cool, mild climates. It
does not like atmospheric pollution and also dislikes hot-dry
soils.
It can grow about
60-70ft. tall and 30 to 35 feet wide, though the tallest specimens
in its native haunts have been measured at over 150 ft.
The plant is dioecious, which means that male and
female flowers grow on different trees. Therefore at least one
male plant needs to be grown for every 5 - 6 females. The tree
does usually not set seed until it is about 40 years old.
 Uses:
In its native land the
seed were a staple food of the Pehuenche Indians, a mountain tribe
of the Mapuche culture. They were also sold in local Chilean
markets.
Potentially
the tree could be grown for its nuts as a commercial crop, because
they are high yielding, and the large tasty seeds are easily
harvested.
The great drawback is its slow rate of growth before the first
crop is produced, which is up to 40 years from seed. The other
difficulty is that there is no way of telling the sex of the tree
until flowering, so it would be hard to make an Monkey Puzzle
orchard with the right mix of male and female trees.
The female cones take 2 - 3 years to mature and contain up to 200
large seeds.
In 1990, the
Ministerio de Agricultura declared Araucaria araucana a Chilean
national monument.
Archibald
Menzies (1754 - 1842) was one of the prolific explorers and plant
collectors of the 18th century. Born in Perthshire, Scotland, many
of his family were either gardeners of botanists. He studied
botany and medicine in Edinburgh, assisted a surgeon in Carnavon
for a while and then became a Royal Navy Surgeon. He took part in
a few major expeditions, one around Cape Horn to the North Pacific
(3 years) and another round the world. Whilst dining in Chile one
night, he was unable to identify some nuts on the table and put
some in his pockets. Some of them sprouted whilst still on the
voyage and so these baby trees became part of the rare plant
collections in Britain. Their amazing appearance made them very
popular with collectors.
Note from
webmother to page visitors:
Many of these pages are still bare bones. Whenever time allows, we
will continue to add information to the Tree Gallery until all the
trees have descriptions of their habitat, characteristics,
cultivation, uses and anything else of interest. Why not get
involved with enhancing this web resource by sending photographs
of trees, bark, details of branches, leaves, flowers, seed and
fruit in all seasons (Good use of all these new digital cameras!).
Email us if you are keen to know more about a particular tree and
we will do our best to complete that one next.
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