Well, I’ll be a monkey’s niece! Monkey Puzzle trees produce these amazing big edible nuts!

Okay. They’re actually seeds, but I like calling them nuts since we’re all familiar with pine nuts. And, yes, those are actually seeds as well.

Araucaria araucana (a.k.a. monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, Chilean pine, or pehuén) is an evergreen tree which can reach over 150 feet in height and can live to be a thousand years old. These trees take twenty years to reach sexual maturity and similar to other ancient trees like gingko biloba, and fellow Araucaria genus member the bunya, they are dioecious having distinct male and female trees with different cones. This means it takes a male and a female to produce their nut-like seeds. The pollen from the oblong-shaped male cones is blown by the wind to the female cones. This feature of the tree…