Winter Wednesday - Pine Trees

In the winter it is only natural to focus on the evergreens.  We took this opportunity to learn some more about them.  First not all evergreens are pine trees. We prepared for our time out of doors reading the pine tree section in The Handbook of Nature Study. From it we learned that the central stem of all pine trees is called the "leader" because it leads the trees growth.  We also learned that not all trees that make cones are pine trees.  

Armed with this information, we went looking for a local pine tree.  We had several trees in mind that we thought might be pine trees and wanted to check out.  They each had a central stem, produced cones and had what we thought were needles.  We were positive that our favorite climbing tree was a pine because we love to gather pine cones under it.  When we visited it during our study we realized it was not.  We gathered some needles and cones from under it to bring home and sketch. We still have not identified what it actually is but we sketched the leaf structure and took notes on it for our journal.  Hopefully we will identify it eventually.