How the Monkey Puzzle Tree found its way to Elizabeth Park was, well, a puzzle. “It’s been in our greenhouse for 30 years; we have no idea when it came here. Nobody has any history,” Kathy Kraczkowsky ...

The ancient monkey puzzle tree has distinctive spiny leaves and intricate scaly branches. Its unusual features, scientists believe, evolved as a defense against towering, long-necked dinosaurs.

To borrow, perhaps dubiously, from Shakespeare, what’s in a name? After all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and, maybe, a monkey puzzle tree by another moniker would still be as ...

The majority of plants that qualify as horticultural oddities are modest in size: many can dwell happily on windowsills. Among notable exceptions is monkey puzzle tree, aka devil’s tree. Up to 80 feet ...