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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.
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Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), or big-cone pine, is a conifer in the genus Pinus of the family Pinaceae.Coulter pine is an evergreen conifer that lives up to 100 years. [2] It is a native of the coastal mountains of Southern California in the United States and northern Baja California in Mexico, occurring in mediterranean climates, where winter rains are infrequent and summers are dry with ...
The female (seed) cones mature in about 20 months from pollination; when mature, they are yellow-brown in color, 15–25 cm (6– 9 + 3 ⁄ 4 in) long, and 5–7 cm (2– 2 + 3 ⁄ 4 in) broad, opening to 12 cm (4 + 3 ⁄ 4 in), and have a small, but sharp, downward-pointing spine on the middle of each scale.
In some (e.g. firs and cedars), the cones disintegrate to release the seeds, and in others (e.g. the pines that produce pine nuts) the nut-like seeds are dispersed by birds (mainly nutcrackers, and jays), which break up the specially adapted softer cones. Ripe cones may remain on the plant for a varied amount of time before falling to the ...
It is the older and weathered cones that are more readily accessible as the scales begin to separate. [13] The Cassia crossbill will mainly eat seeds from cones on the pine tree itself, but fallen cones are also foraged on as well. [3] The crossbill will use its beak to pry the cone open and then it will use its tongue to obtain the seed.
Empty pine nuts with undeveloped seeds (self-pollinated) are a light tan color, while the "good" ones are dark brown. [5] The pine nuts are dispersed by the pinyon jay, which plucks the seeds out of the open cones, choosing only the dark ones and leaving the light ones (as in image at right). The jay, which uses the seeds as a food resource ...
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 areas of North America. The cones on many mature trees are serotinous. They open when exposed to intense heat, greater than or equal to 50 °C (122 °F). [16]