Spruce Cone Study 2025-04-26 (publ. 2025-04-28)
Location: Fairbanks, AK — College Rd playground
I found a fully opened, dried-out spruce cone on the ground. I observed that the scales are arranged as a set of spirals stacked above each other. This stack is six spirals deep, not counting a small flower-like set of scales at the top, which are shaped similar to a rose.
Most scales are about 9 or 10mm long; about 7 or 8 mm wide at the further point out from the center; and are curved about 2mm deep.
Each spiral has about 11 scales in it. The overall height of the cone is about five or six centimeters, and the diameter is about three centimeters at the widest point.
Copyright
This work © 2025 by Christopher Howard is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed