Jaggy

One of the problems about having a favourite place to walk is that taking different photos there becomes a challenge. Today I went for the close up - there have been enough blips of Glen Massan views from the top of Benmore Gardens - and chose this extremely vigorous fresh growth on one of the primitive trees in the Chilean garden. These are the very straight, symmetrical araucaria araucana that are the national tree of Chile - the tree was alive 200 million years ago and rubbed shoulders with the dinosaurs. Its spine-like needles acted as protection from ancient grazing animals now long extinct.

It can live for 1,000 years and grows to 50m high with a trunk diameter of over 3m. Its large seeds, pinones, take two years to mature. The ones in Benmore have been relatively recently planted - this one was about 5' tall.