Young fir trees are among the most elegant of woody plants, like Christmas trees that have been made over by a dynamic young designer. They have a dead-straight, upright trunk and branches that stick ...

As you admire your holiday decorations, pause to examine a pine cone (or a spruce cone or a fir cone). What is this dry, brown thing in your hand, with its airy rows of scales? Think of it as ...

Cone-pickers at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains risk their lives collecting seeds for the native fir trees that adorn many a German living room at Christmas. Producers are now taking steps to ...

I had chosen a dispersed camping site on the Uncompahgre Plateau for its proximity to a small reservoir and a large meadow. But when I drove into the site, I found it was littered, not with refuse, ...

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Look up, look down, and look all around because it appears to be another banner year for cones. Pine cones, spruce cones, fir cones when we talk “pine” cones ...

This winter’s freezes and thaws affected plenty of plants, but one reader experienced some surprising results. Just after the last freeze, she asked about a curious occurrence she noticed concerning ...

Lush, sprawling forests, trails littered with cones and the clean, waxy smell of evergreens in the crisp morning air: Colorado. This state is known for its towering lodgepole pines, pale blue spruces ...