The monkey-puzzle (X is monkey) The proud owner of a young specimen in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends, and one made the remark “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that”; as the tree species had no existing popular name, first ‘monkey-puzzler’, then ‘monkey-puzzle’ stuck. As a practical exercise, a monkey trying to climb one would not be so much puzzled as injured by the razor-sharp leaf edges.
Home / Questions / The name of what tree, native to Chile, has its origin in the remark of an observer who said “It would puzzle a X to climb that”?