Araucaria excelsa

Common name: Norfolk Pine, Flooring Pine

Description:

The Norfolk Pine ( Araucaria excelsa ) is a conifer of the Araucarieaceae family from Norfolk Island (Australia) although it is found in all gardens around the world.

This plant is a conical and evergreen tree that reaches considerable heights, even reaching 70 m in height, although its growth is slow.

Despite being a young tree, it is grown as an indoor plant.

It has a perfectly symmetrical pyramidal shape with horizontal branches that arise from the same floor.

The leaves are small overlapping scales one after the other, forming geometrically branched branches.

Flowering is uninteresting, being much more interesting the formation of subglobose cones 12 cm long and 9 cm thick, which give rise to elongated seeds with 3-6 mm wings.

Crop:

This plant needs abundant light, although when young it adapts well to shade, thriving outdoors when temperatures are warm, as it is sensitive to cold and frost.

When grown indoors, it must be placed in a place with abundant light.

It is not demanding on soils, but prefers slightly acid ones. Indoor watering will occur when the soil is dry, approximately once a week.

Outdoors, while it adapts, it should be watered up to 2 times a week. Once the plant is established, it requires moderate watering.

Multiplication:

It multiplies by seed sowing in spring, but the apical cutting is also used when grown as a houseplant.

Applications:

As an isolated ornamental specimen. It can be planted in a pot and grown indoors as a small tree.