Seedling development of Araucaria araucana (Mol.) K.Koch

Seedlings were grown from seeds of the Chile Pine in defined conditions and some of their morphological and physiological development parameters have been examined. The seeds were harvested from a population of Chile Pines at the foot of the Llaima volcano in south Chile. Already during the stage of seedling development, the Chile Pine shows clear signs of its adaptation to the extreme site conditions. Among them are, for example, the big seeds that are rich in nutrients, the development of a far-reaching highly branched root system, the high light requirement and the temperature optimum for photosynthesis.