The Monkey Puzzle Tree

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The Norfolk Island Pine Tree is an example of God’s imaginative creativity.

The Norfolk Island Pine is a member of a family called “monkey puzzle.” They are native to southern South America, New Guinea, New Caledonia and, of course, Norfolk Island, an island in the Southern Pacific Ocean. The name “monkey puzzle” comes from the fact that its pattern of branching is so irrational that you can't tell where limbs begin or end. Another member of the family, found in Australia, is also called the Monkey Puzzle Tree because it is said that its needles are so arranged that monkeys are left totally befuddled about how to climb it.

One odd feature of the Norfolk Island Pine makes it unwise to try to start a new plant from cuttings. If you take a cutting from the vertical shoot at the top of the tree, you will ruin its appearance. If you take a cutting from a side shoot, it will root, but it will always grow horizontally, never forming a new tree.

The early pioneers of science understood that God was not forced to create anything in a certain way - there was no limit to His creativity. So they saw science as an effort to study, first hand, just how God chose to do things, or as one great scientist said, "to think God's thoughts after Him."