Thursday, October 26, 2017

Take Three Thursday - Cones of Pine

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in. What have you noticed this week? 

Have a peek at what others have found this week:

Maggie at: FarmersWifeDayByDay  


This week as I have wandered about, I noticed that the evergreens, white pines & some maples have been producing an abundance of cones.  Some of the evergreens have so many that from a distance it looks as though the tree is dying.  But it does seem that I was not the only one noticing as there was an article in our local paper about this written by a director of the Arboretum at the University of Guelph.  This abundant production of cones is called Masting.  "trees will try to outsmart the seed predators like squirrels every once in a while producing these huge crops that there's no way the squirrels could possibly eat them all & that way there are going to be some left over to actually sprout & grow. Once sprouted they're pretty delicate & fragile & have to survive being eaten by deer & rabbits". The director went on to say "the abundance of seeds being produced could be intensified by last year's drought & the tree evolutionary survival mode kicked in this year."


brown spots throughout the tree are cones all the way down the tree




Mother Nature you are simply brilliant & amazing even though right now you seem to be having mood swings ... I'll say no more.

6 comments:

  1. Wow - those are simply amazing. Love it when the cones are on the trees. I also love the springtime when the new green sprouts come out on the confers - it looks like they have freshly painted fingernails.

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  2. Very interesting - thanks for teaching me something new!

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  3. Thanks for the fascinating tale of pinecones. Who knew? When I get home I'll be on the lookout for masting. The number of cones on the top of the first tree is amazing!

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    1. There are a few trees I am still trying to get a photo of - they are literally covered top to bottom in cones & these trees are about 50 feet high!

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