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pinecone

Other forms: pinecones

Pinecones are the woody fruit of a pine tree. Walk through an evergreen forest and you'll see pinecones all over the ground.

Although they're not seeds themselves, cone-shaped pinecones contain seeds, which they protect and spread. Every conifer has cones which help it reproduce, and pine trees (from the Eastern white pine to the Ponderosa pine) have pinecones. Forests regenerate after wildfires with the help of pinecones; the fire heats them, which causes them to open and distribute their seeds. The word is rooted in the Greek konos, "cone, spinning top, or pinecone."

Definitions of pinecone
  1. noun
    the seed-producing cone of a pine tree
    see moresee less
    type of:
    cone, strobile, strobilus
    cone-shaped mass of ovule- or spore-bearing scales or bracts
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