Araucaria heterophylla (Salisb.) Franco
Błahoč, Norfolk Island Pine, Norfolk Island araucaria, Norfolk Island-pine
Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.
Summary
Araucaria heterophylla is a species of conifer. As its vernacular name Norfolk Island pine implies, the tree is endemic to Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia. It is not a true pine, which belong to the genus Pinus in the family Pinaceae, but instead is a member of the genus Araucaria in the family Araucariaceae, which also contains the hoop pine and the monkey-puzzle tree. It is sometimes also called a star pine, Polynesian pine, triangle tree or living Christmas tree, due to its symmetrical shape as a sapling.
Text from Wikipedia, “Araucaria heterophylla”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.
About the genus · Araucaria
Araucaria is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. While today they are largely confined to the Southern Hemisphere, during the Jurassic and Cretaceous they were globally distributed. There are 20 extant species in New Caledonia, eastern Australia, New Guinea, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.
Text from Wikipedia, “Araucaria”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.
At a glance
Also known as Abies columbaria (Dum.Cours.) Dum.Cours.; Abies columbaria Desf.; Araucaria excelsa var. glauca Carrière; Araucaria excelsa var. speciosissima Carrière; Eutacta excelsa var. aurea-variegata Carrière and 6 more.
Cultivation
Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to March and June in the northern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.
The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (897 mm of 1237 mm) takes 8 months, March to September and December. Mean temperature moves 5.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: September to March and June.
Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain Habitat rain 1237 mm a year, wettest June at 130 mm, driest October at 71 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
1237 mm a year at the habitat, 897 mm of it March to September and December. Wettest month June at 130 mm, driest October at 71 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1190 mm to 1465 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).
CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 44 mol/m²/day.
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 44 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA).
CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Warmth and air Cold floor 15.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 15.0 °C, the absolute minimum 12.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 24.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 16.1 °C in August (across the envelope cells 15.9 °C to 16.3 °C), warmest day 23.1 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 15.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).
NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 62% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.
The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.
Climate across the habitat
Figures by month
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 23 / 22–23 | 23 / 23–23 | 23 / 22–23 | 22 / 21–22 | 20 / 20–20 | 19 / 19–19 | 18 / 18–18 | 18 / 17–18 | 18 / 18–18 | 19 / 19–19 | 20 / 20–20 | 22 / 21–22 |
| Night °C | 22 / 21–22 | 22 / 22–22 | 21 / 21–22 | 20 / 20–21 | 19 / 19–19 | 18 / 17–18 | 17 / 16–17 | 16 / 16–16 | 17 / 17–17 | 18 / 17–18 | 19 / 19–19 | 20 / 20–21 |
| Rain mm | 83 / 79–105 | 91 / 87–111 | 95 / 92–113 | 118 / 112–152 | 119 / 115–144 | 130 / 126–157 | 130 / 126–146 | 103 / 100–112 | 95 / 92–109 | 71 / 69–94 | 95 / 91–110 | 107 / 103–116 |
| DLI | 44 / 43–44 | 40 / 40–40 | 34 / 34–34 | 27 / 26–27 | 21 / 20–21 | 17 / 17–17 | 19 / 18–19 | 24 / 24–25 | 32 / 31–32 | 38 / 38–39 | 42 / 42–43 | 44 / 44–44 |
| RH % | 62 / 61–64 | 62 / 60–63 | 60 / 59–62 | 59 / 58–61 | 58 / 57–59 | 57 / 56–58 | 56 / 56–58 | 56 / 56–57 | 57 / 57–59 | 58 / 58–59 | 59 / 59–60 | 61 / 61–63 |
Each figure is the median across the 6 grid cells holding the 82 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2380:6958 (-29.025, 167.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 12.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 15.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 24.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 6 distinct grid cells holding the 82 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2380:6958 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -29.00_168.125, lapse-corrected +103 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 104 m (cell mean).
Natural habitat
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Leon Perrie, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Stella Fish, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Mel Whiting, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Mark Richman, some rights reserved (CC BY).
Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.
Papers naming this species
Works whose title or abstract names Araucaria heterophylla, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.
Related
Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.
Sinningia polyantha Gesneriaceae
Opuntia monacantha Common Pricklypear
Drosera neocaledonica Droseraceae
Sinningia leopoldii Gesneriaceae
Aloe thraskii Dune aloeOther Araucaria 5 in the reference
Araucaria angustifolia Brazilian-pine
Araucaria araucana Chile pine
Araucaria bidwillii Bunya Bunya
Araucaria columnaris Cook Island Pine
Araucaria cunninghamii Dorrigo-pine History & registers
Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)wcvp.distribution answeredgbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zamclimate answeredwikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedinat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedinat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)gbif.media answeredopenalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedEvery upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 116 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.








