The araucaria family (Araucariaceae) contains three remarkable genera of cone-bearing trees: Araucaria, Agathis and Wollemia. They are tall trees native to forested regions of South America and Australia. In majestic size and beauty, they certainly rival the coniferous forests of North America and Eurasia. In fact, they are considered the southern counterpart of our northern pine forests. The type genus Araucaria is derived from "Arauco," a region in central Chile where the Araucani Indians live. This is also the land of the "monkey puzzle" tree (A. araucana), so named because the prickly, tangled branches would be difficult for a monkey to climb. Fossil evidence indicates that ancestral araucaria forests resembling the present-day monkey puzzle date back to the age of dinosaurs. In fact, it has been suggested that the tree's armor of daggerlike leaves was designed to discourage enormous South American herbivorous dinosaurs, such as Argentinosaurus weighing an estimated 80 to 100 tons! Another ancient South American species called pino paraná or paraná pine (A. angustifolia) grows in southern Brazil and Argentina.

Australian members of the Araucariaceae include the prickly-leaved bunya-bunya (A. bidwillii) with huge pineapple-shaped cones, the hoop pine (A. cunninghamii) an important Australian timber tree, the Cook pine (A. culumnaris) native to New Caledonia and New Hebrides, and the Norfolk Island pine (A. heterophylla) native to Norfolk Island. The latter species is commonly grown in containers in southern California and is sold as "star pine" because of its horizontal tiers of radiating limbs. Throughout San Diego County "star pines" can easily be recognized by their tall, slender spires of tiered limbs. This species was discovered by Captain James Cook during his second voyage to Australia and New Zealand (1772-1775). The closely related Cook pine of New Caledonia that is naturalized throughout the Hawaiian Islands is named after this famous English explorer. Like the Norfolk Island pine, the bunya-bunya has an unmistakable silhouette with its barren, horizontal limbs tufted at the ends with spiny leaves. The huge seed cones of tall trees pose a serious threat to unsuspecting persons sitting beneath its cone-laden limbs.

Also in the araucaria family is the genus Agathis with more than a dozen species of large, resinous trees scattered throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Malay Archipelago. Several species of Agathis are the source of timber and valuable copal varnish, including kauri pine (A. australis), amboina pine (A. dammara) and dammar pine or Queensland kauri (A. robusta). Copals are a group of resins that form particularly hard varnishes. In addition to Agathis, there are New World sources of copal from resinous leguminous trees, including the West Indian locust (Hymenaea courbaril) and several species of Copaifera. Dammars are another group of hard, durable varnishes that turn shiny and transparent when dry. Although some species of Agathis are named dammar, most dammar resins come from tropical Asian trees of the genus Shorea in the Diptocarpaceae. Copals and dammars are used extensively in oil paintings. When painting with oils, colored pigment is squeezed onto a palette and then taken up in a thinning solution of linseed oil mixed with either copal or dammar. The resins "hold" the paint when dry and provide the luminous depth characteristic.

In 1994, David Noble discovered an unknown cone-bearing tree in rugged Wollemi National Park northwest of Sydney, Australia. About 40 trees in deep narrow canyon turned out to be an undescribed species. They were named Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis), a remarkable new member of the Araucariaceae. This rare conifer was thought to be extinct because its last fossil record was dated at about two million years ago. Choroplast DNA studies show no discernable genetic variation among the 40 trees. Like the rare Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana) of San Diego County, this is truly a relict population that was more widespread millions of years ago. Because of its small population size, a lot of its genetic diversity has been lost through thousands of years of isolation. The Wollemi pine is a great botanical discovery and is truly a "living fossil." Trees are being propagated from seeds, and who knows, maybe some day this tree will be cultivated in San Diego County like other living fossils such as the maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba) and dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

Although they are often referred to as pines, members of the araucaria family have seed cones and foliage that is very different from the pine family (Pinaceae). Conifers in the pine family have cone scales with a pair of ovules (seeds) on the upper surface. Each cone scale is subtended by a distinct bract which is conspicuously exerted in some California species, such as the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Santa Lucia fir (Abies bracteata). Members of the araucaria family have only one ovule per scale and do not have distinct bracts. Unlike the long, slender needles of pines (Pinus), araucarian leaves are typically short, overlapping and often prickly. Some species have broad leaves that superficially resemble leaves of flowering plants. In their native habitats, the araucarias become tall timber trees up to 200 ft. (61 m).

Fossil evidence indicates that the araucaria family reached its maximum diversity during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods between 200 and 65 million years ago, with worldwide distributions. At the end of the Cretaceous, when dinosaurs became extinct, so did the Araucariaceae in the northern hemisphere. Until the middle of the Tertiary Period (135 million years ago), trees of the Araucariaceae grew in forests of the southern supercontinent called Gondwanaland, when South America and Africa were connected with each other and with Anarctica, India and Australia. By 65 million years ago, the continents had divided into positions resembling their present-day configuration. During this time interval, araucariads began a slow decline in range and diversity as flowering plants, better adapted to climatic changes, began to evolve and gradually displace conifers.

In 1915 Alfred Wegener, a German climatologist and geophysicist, published an expanded version of his 1912 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. This novel hypothesis, which has now been confirmed by other scientists, states that continents are not fixed; instead, their relative positions and the positions of the oceans have changed over time. Wegener's hypothesis led to the science of plate tectonics, where scientists study the gradual movement of large plates of the earth's crust along major fault zones. About 200 million years ago, the continents were joined into one supercontinent that Wegener called Pangea (Figure A). By 135 million years ago, Pangea had divided into two large subcontinents called Gondwanaland and Laurasia (Figure B). In the great southern subcontinent Gondwanaland, South America and Africa were connected with each other and with Antarctica, India, and Australia. This is roughly the time when the first flowering plants began to appear on earth. By 65 million years ago, about the time when dinosaurs became extinct, the continents had divided into positions resembling the present-day configuration (Figure C). As of April 2000, the continents resembled the configuration shown in Figure D.

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona contains hundreds of acres of perfectly preserved logs from ancient araucariad forests that grew in nearby highlands of North America during the late Triassic Period (over 200 million years ago). The trees of this extinct forest coexisted with dinosaurs. Many of the petrified logs belong to the genus Araucarioxylon, ancestral relatives of present-day species of Araucaria, such as the South American monkey puzzle and paraná pine. Streams carried dead logs into this once swampy lowland region where they were buried in sediments rich in volcanic ash. The woody tissue of the logs became impregnated with minerals and gradually turned into stone.

For decades Baltic amber has been arbitrarily assigned to an extinct pine (Pinus succinifera); however, IR (infrared spectroscopy) studies show that Baltic amber is more closely related to resins of broad-leafed conifers of the araucaria family (Araucariaceae). Today the only evidence of araucariads in the northern hemisphere comes from amber deposits and petrified wood, such as occurs at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. In New Zealand a living araucariad forest of "kauri pine" Agathis australis produces copious amounts of resin that once formed a thriving industry for hard, durable varnishes and linoleum. Large lumps of hardened resin (up to 100 pounds in size) were dug out of the ground in extensive forested areas of North Island. Forests such as this may have once flourished in the Baltic region 60 million years ago. Throughout the world, the most copious resin-producing trees occur in tropical regions. These complex mixtures of terpene resins may serve as a chemical defense against the high diversity of plant-eating insects and parasitic fungi found in the tropics.

Any discussion of fossilized araucariads would be incomplete without mentioning a medieval gemstone called jet. Jet is a semiprecious gem excavated in Europe and formed by the metamorphosis and anaerobic fossilization of araucaria wood buried under sediments in ancient seas. Ancestral forests that metamorphosed into jet date back to the Jurassic Period, about 160 million years ago. They were similar to present-day forests of monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana) that grow in South America. Chemically, jet it is a hard, carbonized form of bituminous coal with a density similar to anthracite coal. Anthracite can be readily identified by its metallic luster. Jet takes a high polish and has been used for shiny black jewelry for thousands of years. It has a specific gravity of 1.3, almost as hard as the ironwood called lignum vitae (Guaiacum officinale). Jet became very popular during the mid 19th century England during the reign of Queen Victoria, and was often worn to ward off evil spirits and during times of mourning. In the first century AD, the Roman naturalist and writer Pliny described the magical and medicinal attributes of this beautiful mineral. The well known analogy of "jet" and "black" was coined by William Shakespeare in his "black as jet" from Henry VI part 2. One of the most famous areas for the mining of Victorian jet is Whitby on the rugged Northeast coast of England.