Roots of Life

The Brazil nut tree relies on a series of intricate symbiotic relationships with plants, animals and insects found in the wild. This means that the Brazil Nut tree only grows in its natural habitat – the Amazon rainforest. It’s here, in the heart of the Amazon that we find one of these incredible trees… a 500-year-old Brazil nut, nearly 60 metres tall!

In the dank, tropical marshlands of Mexico, we find one of the biggest mangrove trees on the planet, a Red mangrove more than 30 metres tall! This tree, with its elongated spidery roots, is quite a sight to behold. Its vast, tangled root system is a magical realm that provides shelter and food to an array of animal species, from fish, crabs and crocodiles, to larger birds and mammals found nowhere else on the planet. In essence, the mangrove ecosystem is a wild city inhabited by an assortment of creatures… a metropolis for wildlife!

On the snow-covered slopes of the Andes mountains, a living fossil has been rooted for over a thousand years… the monkey puzzle tree. Its most distinguished feature are the tree’s leaves; dark green, rigid scales with spiny tips that spiral around the tree’s branches. It’s these leaves that indirectly give the tree its name; there are no monkeys found in Chile, but it’s believed that a monkey would find it quite difficult to scale a tree with such hazardous leaves… hence, a puzzle for monkeys.