I recently made a trip to New Zealand. While there I was struck by the trees they have in medians, public gardens, residences that they identified to me as a "Norfolk Pine". This tree was very symmetrical in limb and foliage. There were a set of limbs that grew from the same vertical location on the trunk at close to the same separating distance from each other. The needles were toward the tips of the limbs, always pointed up and subscribed an arc from the shortest needle to the next slightly larger needle to the center of the array, then decreasing in size on toward the tip. These grew into some sizable trees, about 30 - 40 feet in height. They were a perfect triangular shape from top to bottom. I wanted to identify these trees when I got back here to the States but in looking at pictures of Norfolk Pines that I found using a search utility, they don't look like the pines I saw, at all. Their branches look to be more random. Can anybody help me sort out this conundrum? Did I see a Norfolk Pine or not? If I did not, what did I see? If I did, why are these other trees called Norfolk Pines?
Google for pics of Araucaria heterophylla. BTW, despite the name, it isn't a pine at all, but a relative of the Monkey-puzzle. It is native to Norfolk Island (in the Pacific Ocean mid-way between Australia and New Zealand), and can grow to 60m tall in the wild. Also note that it won't be hardy in Austin, if you were hoping to grow one. It needs zone 10 conditions, and will be killed by temperatures of -6°C. Resin
I did Google it. That's where I saw the pictures that didn't look like what I saw. BTW, the remark about temperature raises another question. How do these things grow as far south as Christchurch when they are so close to Antarctica? I am assuming that it gets at least as cold as our zone 8a or 8b.
It is possible that some of the pics that come up may be other species (e.g. Araucaria columnaris) mis-labelled as A. heterophylla. On the temperatures, it can grow that far south because it is protected by 2,000km of open ocean; that stops temperatures in Christchurch ever getting much below freezing. The winter average may be fairly cool, but it never gets hard freezes. See also LPN's thread 'Indicator plants' http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=22543 where he's found that NZ native Cordyline australis (native right down to the southern tip of NZ) is killed when temperatures drop to -8 or -9°C in outbreaks of cold continental air.
attached is a (poor quality) picture of one of the trees of the sort I am talking about although some were even more regular than this one. I believe your mislabelling theory is most likely correct. I googled the A. (sp) reference and there is a picture that shows some vestiges of this picture. Thank you for your help.