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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.
The cones get shipped to the U.S. Forest Service's Coeur d'Alene Nursery, where they'll sit on drying racks for a few months. Once the moisture is out, the cones are cracked by hand to extract the ...
Chilghoza seeds, or pine nuts, are harvested for consumption in autumn and early winter by knocking the cones off of the trees. The trees and seed harvesting rights are owned by local mountain clans and villages in some areas, from which they may be exported to markets in the northern Indian plains.
Thus, the follicles open after fire, but seed release does not occur. As the cone dries, wetting by rain or humidity causes the cone scales to expand and reflex, promoting seed release. [11] The seed separator thus acts as a lever against the seeds, gradually prying them out of the follicle over the course of one or more wet-dry cycles.
The seed also contains the integument cells surrounding the embryo. This is an evolutionary characteristic of the Spermatophyta. Mature seed drops out of cone onto the ground. Seed germinates and seedling grows into a mature plant. When the plant is mature, it produces cones and the cycle continues.
The cones are borne on a short stem, and have two to four scales, usually only one (sometimes two) fertile, each fertile scale bearing a single apical seed 10–15 mm. When mature, the scales swell up and become reddish purple, fleshy, and berry-like, 10–20 mm long; they are then eaten by birds, which disperse the seeds in their droppings.
The leaves are in fascicles of three, [6] needle-like, yellow-green, twisted, and 9–15 centimeters (3 + 1 ⁄ 2 –6 in) long. The cones are resin-sealed and irregularly shaped, [4] 8–16 cm (3 + 1 ⁄ 4 – 6 + 1 ⁄ 4 in) long and clustered in whorls of three to six on the branches. The scales end in a short stout prickle.
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 ...