Looking for a unique and distinctive ornamental tree or street tree for your warm temperate climate? Look no further than Araucaria columnaris, also known as Coral reef araucaria, Cook pine, New Caledonia pine, Cook araucaria, or columnar araucaria. Endemic to New Caledonia in the southwestern Pacific, this conifer species boasts a tall, spire-like crown, slender, upright trunk, and whorls of mostly horizontal branches lined with cord-like, horizontal branchlets. The branchlets are covered with small, green, incurved, point-tipped, spirally arranged, overlapping leaves. While young leaves are needle-like, the broader adult leaves are triangular and scale-like, and the female seed cones are scaly, egg-shaped, and 10-15 centimeters long by 7-11 centimeters wide. This species is often planted as an ornamental or street tree in Queensland, Victoria, northern New Zealand, Southern California, Puerto Rico, Mexico, India, Philippines, and Hawaii. While it can reach up to 200 ft tall in the wild, it is more commonly grown in pots as a houseplant. Enjoy the unique and increasingly rare beauty of Araucaria columnaris in your landscape today.
