I know you haven't all been hanging on every word of this blog, so I thought I'd include this image of the mystery tree down by the Melbourne Dockyards from my previous post on www.LouiseLeaps.wordpress.com. Such a conundrum. It had a certain familiarity about it At first I thought it was a Norfolk Island Pine, but the needles are scale-like. Then I remembered, from a decades old Plant ID class a plant called the Monkey Puzzle Tree. But that wasn't quite right, either. THEN, I realized that the Family for that tree probably was correct, and here's the oddest thing of all. I Remembered the Family name. Araucariaceae. How nuts is that?
I had asked folks, found it sadly unlabeled in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, searched books in the library, and finally I did the sensible thing. I went online. I've narrowed it down to Araucaria as a genus, and it is very likely either Araucaria columnarus, also called Cook's Pin. However. The variation in morphology of the images on the web are sort of astonishing. Still.I'm not sure why I'm so anxious to identify it. It is a remarkable life form, and my knowing or not knowing it's genus and species hardly matters. Ray Chambers, a long gone colleague from Penn State, once opened a book of her drawings by dedicating it to her parents. . .her Father who taught her the names of plants, and her mother, who taught her to love them, unnamed.
The orderly tiers of the branches do inspire wonder, don't they?
One last note: Below is the Monkey Puzzle tree, a close relative, and reason for me to feel slightly less daft than usual. Araucaria araucana.
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