Squirrel eats pine seeds from a cone
Go take a walk outside in the fall and collect pine cones on the ground. How many different kinds of pine cones can you find? Can you figure out which tree makes which kind of pine cone? Sit quietly near a pine tree and watch squirrels come to eat the pine tree seeds out of the cones. They eat them like you would eat an ear of corn.
You can eat many pine cone seeds too. Buy some pine nuts – they’re really the seeds from inside the pine cone – at the grocery store and try a handful. Take some pine cones home and put them in a bowl for a pretty decoration on your table.
More about pine trees
Flowering trees
Bibliography and further reading about gymnosperms and pine cones:
