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Project Noah Nature School
Pinus pinea
Thick scaled pine cone lacking real knobs or thorns, shiny, squat, with large reddish "nuts".
Coastal temperate rain forest, likely planted in an old cabin's garden but it may be a tree at the far northern reach of its range (it's not a cone that's familiar farther north along the coast). The area tends to stay fairly warm and doesn't freeze often.
The second photo is of the cone after being brought inside, opening, and shedding its pine nuts, a month after the first photo was taken.
Thanks! The pine nuts out of it were almost the same size as from the gray pine: pretty substantial and hard enough to make nice beads.
This is a cone of stone pine, and the seeds inside are pine nuts (piñones). The tree is native to the Mediterranean region.
I'm wondering if it's a variant knobcone pine, or a monterey pine. The lady who planted it was known to bring in unusual plants.
Spotted on Oct 7, 2011
Submitted on Oct 14, 2011
