Native to central and southern Chile and western Argentina.
A rare one here: only 10 on the map (#183 of 384 species).
Show Monkey puzzle trees on the map
Because of the prevalence of similar species in ancient prehistory, it is sometimes called a living fossil. It is also the national tree of Chile.
The origin of the popular English language name "monkey puzzle" derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. Sir William Molesworth, the owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden near Bodmin in Cornwall, was showing it to a group of friends, when one of them – the noted barrister and Benthamist Charles Austin – remarked, "It would puzzle a monkey to climb that".
Its piñones, or seeds, are edible, similar to large pine nuts, and are harvested by indigenous peoples in Argentina and Chile.