The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Araucaria cunninghamii
Also called Moreton Bay pine; Hoop Pine, Colonial Pine, Dorrigo Pine, Hoop Pine, Richmond River Pine, Queensland Pine, Rocket Tree
Moreton Bay pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) is a large conifer tree from eastern Australia and New Guinea, grown for timber and as a landscape specimen. It is a tall, long-lived forest tree that needs space and a mild, frost-free climate to thrive.
Araucaria cunninghamii is a species of conifer in the family Araucariaceae, known as hoop pine. Other less commonly used names include colonial pine, Queensland pine, Dorrigo pine, Moreton Bay pine and Richmond River pine. The scientific name honours the botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham, who collected the first specimens in the 1820s. It is the earliest-diverging extant lineage within the genus Araucaria, and the only species within section Eutacta native to continental mainland areas; all other species in the section are naturally confined to islands.
The wood is a high-quality timber that is particularly important to the plywood industry and also used for furniture, veneer, joinery, panelling, particle board, flooring and boats. Most natural stands in Australia and Papua New Guinea have been depleted by logging. It is now mainly found on timber plantations; however, the species continues to thrive in protected areas, including Lamington National Park where at least one walking track is named after it.
Aboriginal Australians used the resin as cement.
The species is found in the dry rainforests of New South Wales and Queensland and in New Guinea. The trees can live up to 450 years and grow to a height of 60 metres. The bark is rough, splits naturally, and peels easily.
Paraná-pine · Monkey-puzzle · Bunya · Coral Reef Araucaria · Norfolk Island Araucaria · Araucaria
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Araucaria cunninghamii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
