Interesting article but little told about the cook pine. I was curious about its name and I found this: "Some call it the Christmas tree, and Captain Cook’s pine (Araucaria cookie/Araucaria columnaris) does make for the perfect ‘season’s greeting’ tree. For the uninitiated, Captain James Cook was a British explorer, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy, who, on one of his voyages in the 1770s, came across the archipelago now named after him (Cooks Islands) in the South Pacific Ocean, and saw the pines there. The tall, sturdy trees caught his eye and he found them to be excellent for ships masts and yardarms. An evergreen coniferous tree from the Araucariaceae plant family, it will take a keen eye to spot one in Chandigarh."
Interesting article but little told about the cook pine. I was curious about its name and I found this: "Some call it the Christmas tree, and Captain Cook’s pine (Araucaria cookie/Araucaria columnaris) does make for the perfect ‘season’s greeting’ tree. For the uninitiated, Captain James Cook was a British explorer, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy, who, on one of his voyages in the 1770s, came across the archipelago now named after him (Cooks Islands) in the South Pacific Ocean, and saw the pines there. The tall, sturdy trees caught his eye and he found them to be excellent for ships masts and yardarms. An evergreen coniferous tree from the Araucariaceae plant family, it will take a keen eye to spot one in Chandigarh."