So far we have been learning about plants with flowers, weird plants without flowers (moss and friends), but we have all seen pine cones, so where do they fit in?

Trees still have seeds, but they make them in strange things called cones. On Earth's timescale, trees with cones are pretty old. They were around way before flowering plants, and they do things a little differently.

For one, they have needles instead of leaves. Needles are small pointy green things that stick off the branches. They are used to make food using light just like all plants do. Many of the trees with cones hang onto their needles all year round (called coniferous) while many trees with flowers drop their leaves each fall (called deciduous) and get ready for cold Canadian winters.

Click here for a picture of a needle tree. Can you think of any needle trees? Here are a few names you might know: Douglas-fir, Sitka Spruce, Jack Pine, White Pine, Blue Spruce, Western Hemlock.

These types of trees have female cones at the top of the tree and male cones at the bottom. Can you think of why they would be this way? (Hint: trees don't like to pollinate themselves).

If the male cones were at the top, the pollen could fall right into the female cones and the tree would have pollinated itself. Click here to see a picture of a cone.

Pine tree seeds take 2 years to get ready, and other conifers take only one year. The trees open their cones and release the seeds. The new seeds will grow the same way other seeds grow. Click here to see how.

Click on Next to learn about Seedlings...