Landscape Plants

The genus Araucaria is in the coniferous family Araucariaceae.  It consists of some 20 species of evergreen trees with whorled leaves, columnar or widely branching, conical, and growing to a height of 200 ft (60 m).  Leaves are broadly-triangular to needle-like, stiff, uniformly clothing the branches.  Native to the southwestern Pacific and South America.  Probably the most common species found in U.S. commerce are A. araucana, Monkey Puzzle; A. bidwillii, Bunya-Bunya; and A. heterophylla, Norfolk Island Pine.
Araucaria: after the Arauco Indians of central Chile, in whose territory the species A. araucana is native.