The specimen at Georgia Southern University, Armstrong campus, is definitely an Araucaria araucana--not a China fir/ Cunninghamia lanceolata. I didn't see anyone saying it wasn't? Would love to see a pic of your bunya bunya and cook's pine. I can imagine the former surviving long term in coastal GA (albeit not without injury in severe winters) but not the latter.

Oh my gosh. NB that the link now goes to a totally different dead nursery auction in a different part of the state of NJ. That auctioneer is so thrifty they reuse their old URLS! "Finally, the North American Rock Garden Society's Mason-Dixon chapter will present "Monkey Puzzle Tree, a story of survival"" That's a bit ironically titled. Surely a plant with one of the lowest success rates on the east coast, otherwise you'd see them all over. I seem to recall Mr. Hill of the old Hill's Camellia gardens told me he'd tried several and they were impossible in the climate of DC...he refused to believe there was one in Silver Spring and said it had to be a China Fir. (it isn't) They've been sold as specialities since at least the early 80s and yet you never see them in old gardens. Betty's Azalea Ranch in West Fairfax used to publish a big fancy catalog and they listed them for an ungodly sum for the era, I think $200, but I did see them at the nursery in that time frame when I was a kid. (mid 80s) I think they were also listed by the Foxborough Nursery in NE Maryland, which until they went wholesale only in the early 1990s was the country's ne plus ultra source of rare mail order conifers and things like boxwood. (The wholesale list now is a sad shadow of those days and from the vibe I get having seen the current generation of the family at plant sales, they just see horticultural as a business not a passion.) I have personally killed a couple small ones and I know of other collectors with similar experiences. Chile has probably never had a dewpoint above 65F in the whole country and it shows in the behavior of plants from there. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sat, May 24, 14 at 12:53

I just discovered this Araucaria converstion and wanted to add my experience. Andrew with regards to your initial posting...I only soak my Araucaria seeds for 24 hrs...the ones that sink...usually have the greatest chance for germination...for the seeds that don't sink...I wait about 12 hrs and then soak them for another 24 hrs...most of the time you will find more sinkers. I plant all of the seeds...and have been surprised to find that some of the non-sinkers did germinate. I think that prolonged soaking will kill the seed...so to speak. I've had some Araucaria actually germinate during the soaking process...examples are the A. araucana, A. angustifolia and A. bidwillii. With regards to sowing the seeds...without exception I cover all Araucaria seeds with a small amount of soil...about 1/4 - 1/2 inch. During the cooler months I use heating mats set at about 75 F. Of all the species I grow: A. araucana, A. angustifolia, A. bidwillii, A. cunninghamii, A. columnaris, A. montana and A. hetrophyllla...I have found that almost without exception some will begin germination within 2-3 weeks....but more importantly...don't give up on the remaining seeds that have not shown any signs of germination...I currently have some that are lagging 3 months behind those that have already germinated. Pictures: #1 - a forest of A. angustifolia, #2 - A. araucana (Left) and A. angustifolia (Right), #3 - A. bidwillii getting ready to be moved up to taller pots, #4 - a display of Araucaria seeds.

That is true, UK overall a bit milder than PNW US, but I think there is something else going on. I think there's just more of a culture there (in UK) of identifying and trying out these candidate rare plants, than anywhere else. Maybe if someone botanized a bit more in northern India, they'd find a hardier Aesculus indica. But there are not as many people to do it with the PWN in mind. Our catching up process is always two steps forward, three steps back. Also the UK (and Europe to a broader extent) had and have, those networks formed around the Imperial and Commonwealth worlds as people moved back and forth. Even Ireland: a friend of our family was the daughter of a doctor attached to the Catholic mission in Nairobi. When they moved back to Dublin in the 1950s, she said they took as many seeds as they could find to see what would grow in their garden. She said an acacia tree lasted for years. (I'm going to guess though that it wasn't a native Kenyan species, but an A. dealbata planted by the Brits) Or take a kind elderly lady in New Zealand, who spent 30 minutes showing me her garden, told me her daughter had moved to the UK. So that sort of movement is still going on. Being, physically, in a place where a rare (to your home station) plant can be observed, is I'm sure an important part of the process. I tend to me more moved by things I see "IRL" than in pictures or videos. Though perhaps with me, watching Peter Seabrook's segments on Victory Garden got the fire started, and actually going to Europe and the UK in 1993 made it engulf my soul hahahaha. But in the final analysis, the cultures are just different, period. For example thank goodness we had a Mike Lee running Colvos for a while, but in a culture where the consumption of interesting plants is maybe appealing to only 2% of the PNW populace, instead of perhaps 8% of the overall UK populace, one get the impression the nursery never really took off financially...and he had to 'retire' back to doing landscaping. Because he was running it, I spotted a little known (to me and most people) Larix masterisiana in his last catalog, and got one. I don't think anyone else has quite filled the niche he occupied yet. Maybe the closest is Far Reaches; also I'm told via a third party that the guy who runs Keeping It Green (where I got my Meliosma tree) was just in India collecting. So, again, tiny steps...an optimist would say we are getting closer!