Norfolk Island pine is not an actual pine tree at all! Growing to great heights, it has a straight trunk and pleasingly symmetrical branches covered with short, inward-curving needles. A Norfolk Island pine can grow big—up to 200 feet tall outdoors. Grown indoors, it gets 3 to 8 feet tall or may even be trained as a bonsai or miniature tree.

People often use the slow-growing Norfolk Island pine as a living Christmas tree, frequently decorated with ribbons or ornaments. All too often, the tree is discarded after the holiday season, but it can easily be kept as a permanent foliage plant indoors or planted outdoors when it warms up in the spring.