The Tallest Araucaria in the Province

Araucaria heterophylla has been growing on earth since the Triassic, more than 200 million years, long enough to have shared the planet with the first dinosaurs, though the specimen standing beside La Concepcion's waterfall is a considerably more recent arrival. Native to a single small Pacific island roughly 1,600km east of Australia, the species became a fashionable planting in Malaga's gardens in the mid-19th century, when ship traffic and colonial-era plant collecting made previously unreachable species suddenly available to anyone with land and money. This one has been growing for close to two centuries since, long enough to reach 46 metres, the tallest confirmed araucaria anywhere in Malaga province according to the garden's own record. Its form is the reason the species was ever fashionable in the first place: branches arranged in perfectly regular tiers around a single straight trunk, giving young and old specimens alike a symmetry that looks almost designed rather than grown. Ships once used the trunks of related araucaria species for their main masts, a practical use this ornamental specimen, standing landlocked beside a garden waterfall, will never see.