Araucariaceae is a family of conifers with three living genera, Araucaria, Agathis, and Wollemia. While the family's native distribution is now largely confined to the Southern Hemisphere, except for a few species of Agathis in Malesia, it was formerly widespread in the Northern Hemisphere during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Description
Tāne Mahuta ("Lord of the Forest"), a massive Agathis australis tree from New Zealand
Members of Araucariaceae are typically extremely tall trees, reaching heights of 60 m (200 ft) or more. They can also grow very large stem diameter. As an example of the family, the New Zealand kauri tree (Agathis australis) named Tāne Mahuta ("The Lord of the Forest") has been measured at 45.2 m (148 ft) tall with a diameter at breast height of 491 cm (16.11 ft). Its total wood volume is calculated to be 516.7 m (18,250 cu ft), making it the third-largest conifer after Sequoia and Sequoiadendron (both from the Cupressaceae subfamily Sequoioideae).
The trunks are columnar and have relatively large piths with resinous cortices. The branching is usually horizontal and tiered, arising regularly in whorls of three to seven branches or alternating in widely separated pairs.
The leaves can be small, needle-like, and curved, or they can be large, broadly ovate, and flattened. They are spirally arranged, persistent, and usually have parallel venation.
Like other conifers, they produce cones. Each tree can have both male and female cones (monoecious) or, more commonly, they can have only male or female cones (dioecious).
Male cones are among the largest among all conifer cones, on average. They are cylindrical and drooping, somewhat resembling catkins. They are borne singly on the tips of branches or in the axils of leaves. They contain numerous sporophylls arranged in whorls or spirals. Each has four to 20 elongated pollen sacs attached to the lower surface at one end. The pollen...
