The Monkey Puzzle in the study of the Meme and the Search For The Brass Monkey

The origin of the popular English name Monkey-puzzle derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. The proud owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden (website (http://www.chycor.co.uk/pencarrow/)) near Bodmin 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 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, but as monkeys are not found in the species' native range, the question does not arise. Prior to 1850, it had been called Joseph Bank's Pine or Chile Pine in Britain, both somewhat confusing as it is not a pine. The species' original Mapuche Native American name Pehuén is now also becoming more widely used as an alternative common name in English.