Genus: Araucaria Species: cunninghamii Family: ARAUCARIACEAE Common name: Hoop Pine Plant type: Evergreen Origin: Northern coastal Queensland to northern coastal NSW, Australia and New Guinea. Habit: Naturally growing in scattered locations across the east coast rainforests of Australia, and in the mountains of Papua-New Guinea, tropical - subtropical. Can be a dense, plush, bushy, Araucaria with rich, dark green foliage massed toward the end of branches. Can reach over 60m height. Develops well groomed, symmetrical, conical habit through youth gradually extending branches and crown loses symmetry as the tree gets older. In cultivation, a well established Hoop Pine can be 30-45m in height with a canopy spread 15m wide, maintaining a conical habit when growing in open areas. Foliage and branches can droop. This tree can produce low growing branches or shed old ones so that the crown starts meters above the ground. Trunk is single, upright, cylindrical, hard, coarse; ash - dark grey, can also have reddish-brown; not uncommon for the trunk to develop over 2m in diameter. Can have numerous horizontal rings closely packed together around the trunk creating a ribbed appearance, grooved texture. The bark sheds, not profusely but can peel into horizontal, curled sheets that have been called “hoops”, which is the reason for its common name. Sometimes you can see lots of different sized hoops of curled shed bark on the ground or some about to fall off the tree. Other Hoop Pines seem to take a long time to shed some bark, and it may be a few pieces or areas only. Trunk may also crack/split, develop ridges, crevices and a jagged surface. Branches will whorl around the trunk, usually creating a level of 4 - 7 branches, and radiate outward. The branch can be mostly bare with dense clustered foliage toward the apex. The crown can still have unique character because maturing specimens will have different length branches creating some foliage depth from outer clusters to clusters closer to the trunk. There will be many whorl levels of branches arranged throughout the height of the trunk. Generally the Hoop Pine is slow growing, but can vary- sometimes there are growth spurts or some specimens respond better than others. Some can stay at an almost mature habit for years before the crown really starts to develop character; some can have an underwhelming habit for years with thin trunks, while others can be quite full body and busy even in youth. Long lived. Can thrive in frost-free coastal regions, tolerates some frost, soils light, sandy to rich, deep alluvial to clay. Best on rich, moist, well drained soil. Hoop Pine is grown in large plantations and harvested for its strong, quality, soft wood. In the past this tree was extensively harvested in its natural habitat. Foliage: Green - dark green, prickly tips, spined at the apex, but also some softness to the foliage, up to 20mm length, plush, dense on the entire branchlet growing at the outer ends of branches. Juvenile are sessile on the stem, slender, awl, spirally arranged. Adult acicular/scale-like, curving inward with its tip overlapping the base of another leaf. Flower: Dioecious, usually both male and female flowers do not grow on the same tree. Spring - summer notable female, cream green, green-yellow, slender catkin, up to 75mm length, growing at the terminals of new shoots. Cones: Male is scaled, cylindrical, 30mm length x 70mm width, green aging to brown. Female is ovoid, up to 120mm length x 80mm width, with numerous spirally arranged sharp, pointy scales, hooked mucro, pineapple-like, green aging to brown, flattened woody scales up to 30mm length; single seed with winged margins, enclosed in papery sheath, could take over 1 year to ripen, during summer. The following author's photographs are credited: Araucaria cunninghamii cone at Collins Park Photo by: Bidgee Licensed under: CC BY-SA 3.0 Araucaria cunninghamii mature and immature cones, cultivated, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Photo by: Tatters@Flickr Licensed under: CC BY 2.0