Pine cone

A pine cone is the seed holder of a pine tree. It is shaped like a cone, more or less, though not as much as the cone it is named after, which is shaped exactly like a cone.^[1]

Pine cones open their scales in dry weather and close them in wet weather, making them one of nature’s most reliable ways of finding out whether it is raining, after looking outside.

The spiral question

The scales of a pine cone grow in two sets of spirals, and the number of spirals in each set is usually a pair of neighbouring Fibonacci numbers, such as 8 and 13. In 1983 the International Cone Panel formed a working group to find out why. After nineteen years, 1,400 cones and a long dispute over whether a cone that had been sat on still counted, the panel concluded that the tree had done it on purpose, and moved on to acorns.^[2]

Uses

• Weather forecasting (see above; also see outside).
• Decoration, usually in a bowl that nobody remembers buying.
• Food for squirrels, which remove every scale individually, one at a time, with the patience of someone opening a very small present.
• Being stepped on in socks, for which it is ideally shaped.

See also

• Acorn – the pine cone’s rounder colleague
• Tree – where pine cones come from
• Cone – more cone-shaped

References

1. Needle, P. (1983). Minutes of the First Cone Meeting. International Cone Panel.
2. Resin, S. (2002). Final Report: It Was On Purpose. Sticky Press. p. 1,400.
3. Scale, F. (2010). “Open Means Dry”. Window-Free Meteorology 3: 2.