araucana – refers to the Araucanian people who are native to Chile

• Arauco is a Province of southern Chile

Native range: Chile, Argentina

Leaves:

• spirally arranged
• triangular, stuff closely overlapping, completely obscuring the stem of young trees
• spiny pointed
• parallel veined
• evergreen
• persist for ~10 years

Cones:

• dioecious
• male:
  • 3-5” oblong
  • borne in clusters at the ends of shoots
• female:
  • 3-9”
  • globose
  • upright
  • pineapple-shaped
  • take 2-3 years to mature

Other characteristics:

• tree 50-90 ft. tall (up to 130 ft. in its native habitat)
• may live 700-1,200 years
• horizontal, upward-arching branches appear in symmetrical whorls around the trunk with rope-like branchlets

Relevant info:

• slow growing
• names refers to the indigenous people who eat the large seeds in the part of Chile in which it is native
• seeds (pinones) are edible and reminiscent of pine nuts
• Archibald Menzies (naturalist for Capt. Vancouver) was served some nuts in dessert while dining with the governor of Chile
  • he collected a few and germinated some on the voyage home
• common name reportedly comes from a comment made in the mid-1800s in England where an observer of a specimen tree growing in Cornwall remarked that it would puzzle a monkey to climb that tree
• national tree of Chile, where the species is endangered and therefore protected

Ecology & Adaptations:

• native to woodland volcanic slopes up to 6,000 feet in elevation in the Andes Mountains in Chile and Argentina, including dry sites at high elevations or on thin rocky substrates
• in its small home range, soils are derived from layers of volcanic ash, some <2,000 years old, emanating from a chain of recently active andesitic (igneous rock) volcanoes
• summers are very dry, with most precipitation falling during colder months
• vegetative reproduction – suckering from roots
• pollination by wind
• seed dispersal:
  • large seeds are not dispersed far, but are shade-tolerant and able to establish beneath parent trees
  • pattern may result in clumps
• adapted to fire:
  • thick bark
  • protected terminal buds on branches
  • epicormic buds that sprout after fire damaged or other injury (i.e., buds lie dormant beneath the bark until/unless active shoots higher up the plant are damaged)
  • in one study, trees >30 cm in diameter survived fire, but different intensities may yield different outcomes
• shade tolerant:
  • seedlings and root suckers establish beneath other species after fire
  • developmental increase in self-shading is largely offset by allocation changes which increase leaf area ratio as seedlings grow bigger
  • relatively large seeds do not disperse far and may establish under the shade of a parent tree surviving fire
• tolerant of salt-laden winds in maritime climates
• adapted to low nutrient conditions:
  • evergreen leaves preserve or extend investment in photosynthetic structures
  • nitrogen is re-absorbed from senescing leaves
  • association with mycorrhizal fungi aids absorption of nitrogen and, especially, of phosphorus
• herbivore defense:
  • spiny leaves deter herbivores, especially in seedlings
  • compounds (including diterpenes) in resin deter herbivores and microbial infestation