The Monkey Puzzle Tree (Araucaria araucana)

In the woods is a tree
Unlike others there be
It blends in with the best
But isn't like the rest

Green and full as the others
Yet has no sisters or brothers
It’s one of a kind
Growing amongst the pine

Raised here to coexist
Under our very midst
What anomaly does occur
In a grove of Douglas fir

Narrow grows its stock
In the shadow of false hemlock
For a conifer I mistook
When I took a closer look

Is it a cactus or gum
A cousin of the Boojum
I just can’t tell
It blends in so well

Branches bowed and long
Immovable and strong
Leaves more like thorns
Up its trunk like horns

Atop each rosy pedal
Are barbs hard as metal
Dark as the night
And forty feet in height

It resembles some cedars
But who were its breeders
And what a crying shame
I don’t know its name

So I set out to get
Its name off the internet
This is not a pine or cedar
In fact it’s neither

This tree is not from here
Nor from this hemisphere
Someone thought it exotic
That’s why they brought it

It came here from there
Now they’re everywhere
Guess what greets them
At the local arboretum

From Chilean hinterlands
To here where it stands
I never thought I’d see
A monkey puzzle tree