Araucaria heterophylla Norfolk Island pine

Norfolk Island pine at Sequoia Hall. Sairus Patel, 12 Mar 2024

An extremely attractive, highly formal tree with very unusual leaves arranged to form a smooth cylindrical cage about half an inch in diameter around the twigs. They are sold in tubs as Christmas trees and can, for a time, be grown indoors.

Campus’s most prominent specimen is to the right of the entrance of Sequoia Hall. Another reaches for the sun in the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, near the midpoint of its western edge. A 10-foot multitrunked specimen is at 924 Mears Court. At 845 Ramona Street in Palo Alto stands what might be the area’s tallest, at around 25 feet; cones have been seen high up in its crown.

Before the Chicxulub meteorite impact 65 million years ago, araucarias were growing in Colorado and New Mexico, as witnessed by fossils. The Norfolk Island pine was named by James Cook when he first saw them towering to 200 feet in October 1774. The Australian araucarias produce valuable wood.

Name derivation: Araucaria – Araucani Indians of central Chile; heterophylla – different-leaved.