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Newton Park: View 17
Behind Main House, overlooking the lake.
Tucked among the native British trees is a Monkey Puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), a plant with a great story involved in it's arrival in the UK. It was collected by Archibald Menzies in 1796, when he took 5 seeds (they're edible) from the bowl of the Spanish viceroy of Chile, and smuggled them back to Kew gardens, where a tree originating from this source grew until 1892. The Monkey Puzzle tree remained rare in cultivation until the mid 19th century, when seed was brought back by William Lobb (in 1844), and it enjoyed its great period of popularity during the late Victorian period. Our specimen is suspected to have been planted in the mid 20th century.
One of the rabbits that roam wild at Newton Park.