cone
Sign in to saveseed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants
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A cone is a seed-bearing structure found on gymnosperm plants like pine trees and firs, where seeds develop between overlapping scales. Cones matter because they're how these plants reproduce and spread their seeds, making them essential to the life cycle of many important tree species.
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A mature female big-cone pine (Pinus coulteri) cone, the heaviest pine cone
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. They are usually woody and variously conic, cylindrical, ovoid, to globular, and have scales and bracts arranged around a central axis, but can be fleshy and berry-like. The cones of Pinophyta (conifer clade) contain the reproductive structures. The woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cone, which produces pollen, is usually ephemeral and much less conspicuous even at full maturity. The name 'cone' derives from Greek konos (pine cone), which also gave name to the geometric cone. The individual plates of a cone are known as scales. In conifers where the cone develops over more than one year (such as pines), the first year's growth of a seed scale on the cone, showing up as a protuberance at the end of the two-year-old scale, is called an umbo, while the second year's growth is called the apophysis.