Araucaria cunninghamii Mudie

Forest emergent, 30-60 m tall, with a clear bole of 20-40 m and up to 2 m diam. Major branches tend to be in false whorls and tend to be rather straight, growing upwards at a slight angle but gradually declining with weight, persisting in open growth situations. Subsequent ramification more complex and denser than in any other Araucaria giving the tree the appearance of a cypress when young and a spruce when older. Outer bark at first in nearly smooth horizontal peeling strips or hoops which become smaller and rough with maturity, red in the interior but weathering to dark brown or black. There is a thick white resinous exudate. Cotyledons linear, c. 2 cm by 1.5-1.8 mm, narrowing to an acute apex, with several evenly spaced vascular strands. Juvenile leaves straight, linear-lanceolate, pungent, bilaterally flattened but laterally keeled, briefly decurrent forming a sharp rib on the stem, quite variable in size being tiny at the base of a shoot, most often c. 1 by 0.1 cm, on vigorous shoots up to 2.5 by 25 cm; leaves on the leader, particularly at the seedling stage, reduced to triangular spreading bifacially flattened scales c. 2 mm long. Leaves on older plants gradually becoming falcately curved forward and acicular. Adult leaves crowded and curved so that their sharply pointed apices are directed slightly inward, four-angled but about twice as wide as thick, the ultimate leafy branches c. 5 mm in diameter with lanceolate leaves c. 5 by 1.5 mm; vigorous branches at least 1 cm in diameter with leaves 7-9 by 2 mm. Pollen cones terminal on foliage shoots, sometimes rather short shoots, subtended by a cluster of numerous leaf-like bracts about the same size as the leaves but distinctly thinner and more crowded, the cone 4-8 cm long and 8-10 mm in diameter, linear but tapering slightly to a more or less blunt apex, formed of numerous microsporophylls. Each microsporophyll on a stalk 2-3 mm long, the apex extended into a triangular flat apical part 1.2-1.8 mm long, slightly keeled on the dorsal side, margins narrow and slightly serrate, with five or more pendant pollen sacs along the base. Seed cones terminal on robust shoots with a more or less abrupt transition to the fertile scales whose apical spines are like the leaves but bent backward, the mature spine-covered cones ovoid shaped, 6-10 by 5-7 cm. The cone scales complex less the spine 23-29 mm long and including the membranous wings c. 34 mm wide, the thickened end or apophysis up to 24 mm wide with a tetragonal central part c. 5 mm thick and bearing a strong central ridge, from the upper part of the seed to the apophysis the thickened scale extended laterally by firm lobes; a ligule covering the seed, 7-9 mm wide, narrowing sharply above the seed apex and then elongated into a triangular free apex c. 2 mm long and touching the edge of the apophysis; membranous wings bluntly rounded and c. 12 mm wide; seed completely imbedded between the scale and the ligule but indicated by an almond-shaped bulge 2 by 0.7 cm and tapering towards the micropyle at the base of the cone scale.

It is a subtropical plant. In Papua New Guinea it grows from 1,000-2,750 m altitude. It grows in areas with high rainfall and temperatures between 9-26°C. It can tolerate light frosts. In Yunnan. Arboretum Tasmania.

Plants are grown from seed. Seed are collected from ripe cones.