The Trees that Monkies Puzzle Over?



Like a giant elephant's foot the massive Araucaria araucana sits proud in a Pinetum just 4 miles from my home.    The vicinity, alongside Aira Beck, was landscaped by the Howard family of Greystoke in the 1780's and is close to the shores of Ullswater, the Lake District National Park's second longest body of water.

The area, used as a pleasure garden, contains footpaths, tracks and bridges.   Over half a million native and ornamental trees surround easily accessible waterfalls - the Cascades, High Force and Aira Force.

In 1846 the Howards created a tree garden below Aira Force when they planted over two hundred specimen conifers (firs, larches, yews, pines, spruces and cedars) from all over the world.    This was the age of Victorian exploration and Empire, collectors were travelling the world discovering new plants to set into the landscapes of Great Britain.



Cone bearing trees are easily distinguished from other woody plants.   None more so than Araucaria araucana, known by the common name as the Chile Pine or (because it would bewilder a monkey to climb) the Monkey Puzzle tree.

The native home of the tree is amongst the Araucarian Indians of Chile and Argentina and has an arrangement of sharp, closely set pointed leaves that clothe the branches.   The globular cone borne upright on a female tree takes two to three years to ripen.

The gemstone Jet is the product of the decomposition of the Aracaria araucana.  Should you walk an 8 mile stretch of beach of Yorkshire's Whitby coast you will find remnants of the Monkey Puzzle tree in the form of Jet stone.    181 million years ago this is where these trees grew.    The Jet black gemstone was the only jewellery worn by Queen Victoria (1819-1901) after her husband Prince Albert (1840-1861) died.   





  

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