Agathis robusta Queensland kauri

Trio of Agathis robusta, Galvez Mall. Sairus Patel, 10 Jul 2023

Peeling bark and shiny leaves of Agathis robusta, Galvez Mall. Sairus Patel, 5 Jun 2022

The smooth, mottled bark of this rainforest giant peels in rounded flakes, revealing russet and pink beneath. The flat, glossy leaves, broad and narrowing to a tip, are not unlike those of fellow Araucariaceae members bunya bunya and monkey puzzle, though these won’t hurt you. Their veins run longitudinally, as in the phyllodes of Acacia melanoxylon. Emerging leaves are an enchanting apricot-tinted beige, not far removed from the “flesh” crayons of earlier times.

Three trees were planted in 2004, just east of the south corner of Green Library, across the pathway. They were then scarcely an inch in diameter; today the tallest rises to 52 feet and is nearly 14 inches across. They remain in their juvenile phase: narrowly columnar, with branches set in horizontal whorls. Lower branches drop on their own, the scars gradually healing, so that much of the bole stands smooth and bare, interrupted only by the occasional upward-angled shoot near the base – convenient for examining the leaves. This pole-like period can last for half a century or more; in its more celebrated cousin A. australis, the New Zealand kauri, it is known as the “ricker” stage. That species is all but unknown in the U.S. outside botanical gardens, and has smaller, sometimes narrower leaves. In both species, with maturity, the upper branches ascend and the crown broadens.

Pollen cones are dark, stubby fingers; the nearly spherical seed cones give the genus its name, Agathis – from the Greek for a clew, or ball of thread. (Theseus, after he the Minotaur slew, found his way out of its labyrinth by means of such a clew.) Robusta may allude to the relatively large leaves of the species.

A considerably stouter, three-trunked specimen grows south of 85 Willow Road in Menlo Park, confined within a remarkably cramped concrete planter in the parking lot – perhaps not unrelated to the former headquarters of Sunset Magazine, which stood just across the road. Two of its trunks, smaller and nearly upright, likely arose from basal shoots left unpruned – an unusual departure for a species described as single-stemmed. The branches appear to be forming a broader crown; the tree may be entering an intermediate stage. Cones should be sought there; it may be some time yet before our own clew-less trio produces any.

Agathis robusta leaves. From Trees of Stanford and Environs, Ronald Bracewell

Agathis robusta between Galvez Mall and Green Library. John Rawlings, 2004