Monkey puzzle tree, Kew Gardens, London
The common name of this tree, monkey puzzle, has probably added to the tree’s fame and the fondness that people have for it.
It is the national tree of Chile, and was discovered by a Spanish explorer in around 1780. In 1795 an English traveller who liked to gather unusual plants brought it home with him. Someone marvelling at the monkey puzzles growing over here, remarked that climbing it would puzzle even a monkey. And hence its name.
It is certainly a puzzling structure and one that I’m very glad to find in Kew Gardens. The tree I’ve featured here was planted in 1978 so it’s quite a youngster. In temperate rainforest, barring intervention by us humans, the monkey puzzles will live beyond their 1000th birthday. Thankfully, Kew is working to conserve this tree by growing more at both their Kew and Wakehurst gardens. They gathered seeds in southern Chile in 2009, and many of these are now flourishing.
Copyright Debbie Smyth, 12 January 2021
Posted as part of Tuesday Photo Challenge
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Travel with Intent 
Kew Gardens are such a wonderful place, the amount of plants there is amazing.
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Always been fascinated by monkey puzzle trees; unfortunately my closest is at the Glasgow Botanic Gardens 😩
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What a funny name! We call it “AndenTanne”. It grows in our park , but you can also see it in some front gardens.
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Ah, a fairly literal translation of Chile pine.
Yes, there’s one in a garden over the road from me. On a busy road, so not as impressive as seeing it in green open spaces
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Hi Debbie, nice shots…looks like it is a very tall tree!
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I am a big fan of these monkey puzzle trees. We do not have any here in Ontario that I know of but I have admired the ones at Kew. Your photos have done it justice Debbie!
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That last shot is especially cool.
janet
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A very cool tree. Great shots of it, Debbie. 😄
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I’m a fan 🙂 🙂
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We have a few of these monkey puzzle trees around here too. They are funky and fun. Terrific photos Debbie 😀
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Hi Debbie, Great photos. We saw many of these trees in the wild in Southern Chile! They call them Araucaria in Spanish. I bet the first Europeans to see them were from Spain, and the first people to see them were the Mapuche Nation. So discovery probably goes to the latter. 😉 R
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Never heard of this, it is a pretty tree
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