The Development of a Cone

A close look at larch cones.....

I first noticed young female cones on larch trees (Larix decidua) just over ten years ago and was immediately struck by their beauty and fascinated by watching their development over the months. If you’ve never looked closely at larch trees, you may find it’s well worth your while. My original intention was to post pictures of the cones as they develop week by week, but then realised some readers may not be quite as fascinated as I am, so I’m just presenting photos that show the more significant changes. Though I’ve still included a lot of photos, making the post too long for many emails, in which case please read it on the website.

A young female larch cone

(Some photos in this post include black fabric as a background to force my camera to focus on the bulbs rather than the distant vegetation, which doesn’t lead to the most elegant photos, but elegance isn’t the point here!)

Since first finding young larch cones, I’ve kept an eye out to try and find them at their earliest stage of development and this is what I found on 11 March this year:

The photo below from March 2019 shows the next stage in development

and on 25 March this year, the young cones looked like some sort of unusual flower, though they’re not technically flowers

by 7 April, the colour is definitely less bright and the shape is changing

these changes were even more pronounced by 17 April

though not all the cones develop at the same rate, below are some other, younger cones, also on 17 April

the colour has darkened even more by 20 April

on 4 May

here they are on 13 May

the ‘petals’ have almost disappeared by 20 May

and by 26 May most of them are definitely looking like cones rather than flowers

by 9 June, they’re definitely young cones.

At the same time there are some mature cones on the same tree

Over the next few months, I’ll follow the cones to maturity, and hopefully will have photos to share later in the year outlining the second half of their development.

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If you’re heading into the Scottish Highlands, be aware of ticks! Here is an excellent article from the Walk Highlands website, much of the information will be relevant for other areas of the world where ticks can be found.

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