(I wonder to what that old expression in my title refers...)
Last week, as I was going to open the gate of the preserve early in the morning, I saw an object about an inch long laying on the driveway. Not recognizing what it was, I picked it up to examine it, and it turned out to be the cone of one of the conifers lining that part of the drive. Or was it...?
At first, I thought it was just a tiny, immature cone that would have grown much larger if it hadn't been snipped from a branch by a squirrel or rambunctious crow. In any case, I brought it in the house and set it aside.
Over a period of a few days, it ripened and revealed itself - not as an embryonic pineapple - but as a male cone that would never have grown any larger. Instead, the tiny cone on my kitchen counter-top was surrounded by drifts of yellow pollen. You can bet I cleaned it up carefully.
4 comments:
I didn't know those cones I thought was just "baby cones" wouldn't get any bigger.
And, I couldn't believe how much pollen that tiny cone released, Carolyn. The cone was sitting in a drift of pollen when it was fully "ripe" and released.
You got a big chuckle out of me with this post, Scott. What a thing of beauty that cone is. Love the juxtaposition in the second photo.
:)
This morning, as I walked past the spruce from which the cone in the post image came, I noticed many, many more male cones on the tree. They actually have gotten substantially larger than the little cone I photographed, but they've also gotten less "pineapple"-like, too.
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