A fine set of pinecones, ©voyager, all rights reserved
It’s a bit warmer and a bit more humid today so Jack and I opted for a walk in our little wildflower forest, Trillium Woods. It was a good choice, too. We were shaded the whole way around and had the company of a very busy woodpecker pounding out a beat too fast to count. He was too far up to see properly so I can’t show you a photo, but he was so loud that the sound was bouncing off the trees and creating a sort of echo chamber that you could almost feel as a vibration. It was an interesting experience. Definitely physical and a bit exhilarating, but also a bit annoying and the short pauses the bird took were definitely a welcome break. Jack thought so too. I could see he was a bit anxious and every now and then he’d look up as if he was waiting for the sky to fall. All in all, an unexpected and different sort of adventure for Jack and I today.
I wonder if those are actually spruce cones -- they look just like the cones on the Norway spruce in my yard. Sometimes they open up on the tree like in your picture, but sometimes the cones fall to the ground before they open. When that happens, the chipmunks and squirrels will literally tear them apart to get at all the seeds inside!
I vote for Spruce cones. Not only on the cones but the needles (?) say that the tree is a Spruce. I speak as one, who as a child, had many spruce Christmas trees.
Looks like the spruce trees in my yard.
I love the depth and perspective in this.
The discussion about calling all or many conifer cones pinecones has been done before, I find it counterintuitive to call anything else than pine pinecones pinecones, but that’s language and making sense is optional, however as English seems to lack specific simple noun for conifer cones (in Finnish: käpy, Swedish: kotte), using pinecone certainly better than nothing.
As for the species of spruce pictured, could this be Norway spruce (Picea abies) as springa73 is implying? From what I could gather in Wikipedia, the North American black (Picea mariana), white (Picea glauca) and red (Picea rubens) spruces have shorter cones. Fir (Abies) cones AFAIK are often long but they are erect, not hanging downwards.
Here’s a song about pinecones: Čiekuri by Reigani. (The 90s alter-ego band of Prāta vētra, a.k.a. Brainstorm. They did unserious songs about tractors and airplanes and other things, characterized by a punkish style, humour, vulgarity and very simple lyrics. Speaking of which:
Pi-pi-pi-pi-pinecones,
Rusty feathers,
Those those those those those
Falling on people’s heads
chorus:
And I’m not sorry*!
* In a non-guilt-admitting way, as in, I have no sympathy.)
My dendrology got a bit rusty over the years of non-use, but this is definitively spruce (Picea sp.) and most probably Norway spruce Picea abies.
Thanks, Charly. I am no expert on conifers.