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Araucaria imbricata is a tree usually 50 to 100 feet high, with a cylindrical stem, only slightly tapering in adult trees, and attaining 3 to 5 feet in diameter. The bark is very rough and divided into large thick irregularly pentagonal or hexagonal scales. The branches, in whorls of 6 or 7, are at first very spreading, and in young or isolated individuals persist for a long time, but in the forest generally fall off until a broad umbrella-shaped crown of very crowded branches remains. In certain cases, secondary shoots appear on the trunk among the older branches as they die off.

Leaves: all of one kind, spirally crowded on the branches, sessile, coriaceous, rigid, ovate-lanceolate, with a sharp point at the apex, slightly concave on the upper surface, glabrous, bright shining green, marked with longitudinal lines, bearing stomata on both surfaces, margins cartilaginous; persistent for 10 or 15 years, withering during the later period of their life; their remains may be seen for a long time on the trunk and branches as narrow transverse ridges.

Male flowers: catkins almost cylindrical in shape, solitary or 2 to 6 in a cluster, terminal, sessile, erect, 3 to 5 inches long, yellow in colour, composed of densely packed anther scales, the tips of which are sharply pointed and recurved; pollen sacs 6 to 9. The male flowers frequently remain intact on the tree for several years; they generally in Europe appear early in spring, the pollen escaping in June or July.

Female flowers: ovoid, solitary, terminal, erect, about 3 inches long, composed of numerous wedge-shaped scales, terminating in long, narrow, brittle points.

Cones: globular, brown in colour, 4 to 6 inches in diameter, falling to pieces when the seeds are ripe (in England in late summer, in Chile in January or February). The cones take two years to ripen, fertilisation occurring in the second year in June or July, when the scales open and expose the ovule to the pollen blown from neighbouring staminate trees. Three months after fertilisation the seeds are fully matured.

Seeds: adnate to the scale and falling with it, 1 to 1½ inch long, wingless, covered by a thick brown coat. There are about 300 seeds in a cone.