the.com/araucaria
A conifer that looked prehistoric before prehistoric was a thing dinosaurs cared about.
means A genus of tall, spike-leaved evergreen conifers (including the monkey puzzle tree) known for their stiff, geometric, almost reptilian branches.
from Named after the Araucanía region of south-central Chile, home to the Araucanians (Mapuche people), where the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) grows natively. The botanical name was fixed in the late 1700s/early 1800s when European botanists cataloguing Chilean flora borrowed the place-name directly for the genus.
- origin
- named after Chile's Arauco region
- dino era
- flourished alongside actual dinosaurs, barely changed since
- nickname
- monkey puzzle tree, since climbing it baffles monkeys
- leaves
- spiky scales that outlive the branch, staying put for decades