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Araucaria columnaris is a distinctive narrowly conical tree growing up to 60 m (200 ft) tall in its native habit. The trees have a slender, spire-like crown.[3] The shape of young trees strongly resembles A. heterophylla. The bark of the Cook pine peels off in thin paper-like sheets or strips and is rough, grey, and resinous.[3]The relatively short, mostly horizontal branches are in whorls around the slender, upright to slightly leaning trunk. The branches are lined with cord-like, horizontal branchlets. The branchlets are covered with small, green, incurved, point-tipped, spirally arranged, overlapping leaves. The young leaves are needle-like, while the broader adult leaves are triangular and scale-like.[3]The female seed cones are scaly, egg-shaped, and 10–15 cm (4–6 in) long by 7–11 cm (3–4 in) wide. The smaller, more numerous male pollen cones are at the tips of the branchlets and are scaly, foxtail-shaped, and 5 cm (2 inches) long.[3]A 2017 study found that trees tend to have a tilt dependent on the hemisphere of their location, growing upright on the Equator but leaning south in the northern hemisphere and north in the southern hemisphere.[4]