“As a student at Kew Gardens in 2005, I was lucky enough to come across a specimen. A tiny sapling was planted in a neat circle cut out of the lawn surrounded by a metal cage to protect it from poachers. Indeed, in the early days that was a legal requirement for any of the specimens from this first batch of introductions. Looking strikingly similar to a monkey puzzle, but with soft ferny leaves instead of hard spikes and bubbled bark, I thought I’d be an old man before it took off. But boy was I wrong!
Advertisement
Today the tree towers above me. It’s probably over 8m tall. Its metal cage gone, it has suckers and side branches all over the place. Shooting up at the rate of 1m a year it has already produced many crops of cones, meaning there is now a new generation of the plants grown from its seeds. Comparing this to my little monkey puzzle, which is a good half century off forming cones, and I can’t help but be seething with jealousy. So, if you love these ancient living fossils as much as I do, plant a Wollemi if you want to see it in your lifetime and a monkey puzzle if you want it for the next.”
Apparent;y you can still acquire a WOLLEMI PINE from select horticulturalists:
Yes, my daughter grows them...a reasonably well established plant in a pot sells for approx $AU90
https://www.britannica.com/plant/Araucaria
‘The monkey puzzle tree and several other members of the genus are cultivated on the Pacific coast of the United States and also in some cases in southern Florida. They are valued for the conspicuous growth habits that set them apart from nearly all other conifers. The Norfolk Island pine (A. excelsa), a native of Norfolk Island and New Caledonia, and the bunya pine (A. bidwillii) of southeastern Queensland both find some use as houseplants during the sapling stage because of the beauty of their symmetrically tiered growth. The Moreton Bay pine (A. cunninghamii), the bunya pine, and the Paraná pine (A. angustifolia) are common outdoor ornamentals.’