Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A mature female big-cone pine (Pinus coulteri) cone, the heaviest pine cone A young female cone on a Norway spruce (Picea abies) Immature male cones of Swiss pine (Pinus cembra) A conifer cone, or in formal botanical usage a strobilus, pl.: strobili, is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants, especially in conifers and cycads.
Cones of all species have thick scales, and all except those of P. pinea open at maturity. Species in this section are native to Europe , Asia , and the Mediterranean , except for P. resinosa in northeastern North America and P. tropicalis in western Cuba .
The cones are 3–5 cm (1 + 1 ⁄ 4 –2 in) long, the scales with a small, fragile prickle that usually wears off before maturity, leaving the cones smooth. Unusually for a pine, the cones normally point forward along the branch, sometimes curling around it. That is an easy way to tell it apart from the similar lodgepole pine in more western ...
The cones take from four months to three years to reach maturity, and vary in size from 2 to 600 millimetres (1 ⁄ 8 to 23 + 5 ⁄ 8 in) long. In Pinaceae, Araucariaceae, Sciadopityaceae and most Cupressaceae, the cones are woody, and when mature the scales usually spread open allowing the seeds to fall out and be dispersed by the wind.
The cones are symmetrical ovoid, 4–6 cm (1 + 1 ⁄ 2 – 2 + 1 ⁄ 4 in) long by 2.5 cm (1 in) broad, and purple before maturity, ripening to nut-blue and opening to 4–5 cm (1 + 1 ⁄ 2 –2 in) broad, the scales without a prickle and almost stalkless. [2] The pine grows well in sandy soils and on soils which are too poor for white pine. [5]
Young female cone Pinus sylvestris forest in Sierra de Guadarrama, central Spain. Pinus sylvestris is an evergreen coniferous tree growing up to 35 metres (115 feet) in height [4] and 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in trunk diameter when mature, [5] exceptionally over 45 m (148 ft) tall and 1.7 m (5 + 1 ⁄ 2 ft) in trunk diameter on very productive sites.
Jeffrey pine wood and ponderosa pine wood are sold together as yellow pine. [6] Both kinds of wood are hard (with a Janka hardness of 550 lbf (2,400 N)), but the western yellow pine wood is less dense than southern yellow pine wood (28 lb/cu ft (0.45 g/cm 3 ) versus 35 lb/cu ft (0.56 g/cm 3 ) for shortleaf pine).
Longleaf pine takes 100 to 150 years to become full size and may live to be 500 years old. When young, they grow a long taproot, which usually is 2–3 metres (6 + 1 ⁄ 2 –10 feet) long; by maturity, they have a wide spreading lateral root