Conifers are gymnosperm plants within the division Pinophyta, characterized by woody stems, predominantly evergreen habit, and reproduction via exposed seeds borne on cones rather than enclosed within ovaries. They typically possess needle-like or scale-like leaves with adaptations for reduced water loss, such as thick cuticles and sunken stomata. Conifers exhibit secondary growth via a vascular cambium, producing substantial xylem (softwood). Their life cycle features dominant diploid sporophytes and reduced gametophytes, with wind-mediated pollination. Ecologically, conifers dominate many boreal and montane forests, and biologically they are key models for studying long-lived perennials, wood formation, and gymnosperm reproductive biology.
With the arrival of spring a few weeks ago, new buds and colors on the trees started to appear. Along with that new growth, a UBC Okanagan researcher has determined that some trees in spring also provide simple, visual clues—raised ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 1, 2026
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What can the world's longest living individual teach us about longevity? A team of scientists coordinated by the University of California, Davis, sequenced the Great Basin bristlecone pine genome, which could help unlock ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 23, 2026
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The temperate rainforests of the Chilean Coast Range are home to a spectacular array of life: iridescent blue lizards, tiny wild cats called kodkods, and curly vines of waxy red bellflowers. Towering over this biodiversity ...
Ecology
Mar 3, 2026
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A new national monitoring program provides, for the first time, area-representative knowledge of semi-natural grasslands in Norway. The results show that this habitat covers a larger area than previously mapped, but that ...
Ecology
Feb 16, 2026
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University of Alberta researchers have, for the first time, captured a much better view of what may be contributing to failures in lodgepole pine seed orchards—a tree essential to Alberta's forest industry. The researchers ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 3, 2026
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New research led by a University of Oregon ecologist suggests that fire was historically more frequent in the Douglas fir forests of the western Oregon Cascade Range than previously believed.
Plants & Animals
Feb 3, 2026
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19
Trees play a central role in life on Earth. They store CO₂, provide habitats for animals, fungi, and insects, stabilize soils, regulate water cycles, and supply resources that humans rely on—from timber and food to recreation ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 28, 2026
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For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about ...
Ecology
Jan 27, 2026
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19
Vast swaths of the ponderosa pine forests that blanket Colorado's Front Range mountains could turn rust-colored and die over the next five years as pine beetles begin to spread aggressively, new federal forecasts show.
Plants & Animals
Dec 29, 2025
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284
A profound unraveling is underway in the American Southwest, happening across a thousand-mile arc from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the central Sierra. In an unprecedented calamity, the most widely distributed, most iconic tree ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 9, 2025
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