I think anyone who has been teaching plants (horticulture or botany) for any length of time gets comfortable with telling students 'I don't know.' It's bedeviling how many different species are out there and after a few years, you aren't too concerned with appearing as if you don't know *everything*.
That said, it is a thrill when you encounter some horticultural oddity in the landscape and you know right away what it is. In this case, I instantly recognized it because on some cold winter in New York, I saw it at the Japanese Garden in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (in fact, I met this plant the same day I encountered Wollemia, parachute plant and Asclepias physocarpa
Above you can see the iridescent suckers at the base of the trunk. Evidently these suckers can be harvested with ease. The foliage is a bright light blue (this is probably a 'Glauca' cultivar) and is distinctive in that the leaves fall from the stem in two ranks, much like some species of Taxus. In fact, this plant was classified in the Taxodiaceae family for some time, though is now considered a Cupressaceae plant.
The spiney leaves are very sharp -- frankly I'm surprised this isn't in the Pinaceae family, related to Picea -- and when the leaves fall to the ground and dry they can become a fire hazard.
As the name implies, the plant is native to China and islands off the coast of China. There, the wood is frequently harvested for timber.
This is a plant I have heard some refer to as Monkey Puzzle Tree, though I think that is another plant entirely. I see them around occasionally. They seem to be in older landscapes as if someone planted it and then didn't know what to do with it. The spines are really dangerous. They fall typically pointing up and if stepped on, you are in for some serious hurt. Good to know they have some timber value.
ReplyDeleteActually, Matt, you're thinking of Araucaria auracana. I mentioned it once before in the post about Wollemia: http://newyorkplantsandotherstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/wollemia-nobilis.html
ReplyDelete