Cinder cone

“ If possible, the inside of the cone is more beautiful than the outside; the scales, bracts, and seed wings are tinted with the loveliest rosy purple with a bright lustrous iridescence; the seeds, three fourths of an inch long, are dark brown. When the cones are ripe the scales and bracts fall off, setting the seeds free to fly to their predestined places, while the dead spike-like axes are left on the branches for many years to mark the positions of the vanished cones, excepting those cut off when green by the Douglas squirrel. ”

“ This plucking and stripping of a pine cone is a business which he [the squirrel] and his family understand perfectly. . . . He does not prick his fingers, nor pitch his whiskers, nor gnaw the solid cone any more than he needs to. Having sheared off the twigs and needles that may be in his way (for, like a skillful wood-chopper, he first secures room and verge enough) , he neatly cuts off the stout stem of the cone with a few strokes of his chisels, and it is his. ”

“ I think that I may venture to say that every white-pine cone that falls to the earth naturally in this town, before opening and losing its seeds, and almost every pitch-pine one that falls at all, is cut off by a squirrel, and they begin to pluck them long before they are ripe, so that when the crop of white-pine cones is a small one, as it commonly is, they cut off thus almost every one of these before it fairly ripens. ”

“ Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine pointing downward, as if to protect its seeds from squirrels and birds. That hard, closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it, and could only be cut open, has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season. ”

“ Nature matures a million conifer seeds for each one she chooses for growth, so we can only speculate as to the selection of the seed from which sprung this storied pine. It may be that the cone in which it matured was crushed into the earth by the hoof of a passing deer. It may have been hidden by a jay; or, as is more likely, it may have grown from one of the uneaten cones which a Douglas squirrel had buried for winter food. Douglas squirrels are the principal nurserymen for all the Western pineries. Each autumn they harvest a heavy percentage of the cone 35 crop and bury it for winter. ”

“ Imagine a red cone, from four to ten inches in height, and one to two in diameter, set firmly in the ground. It is not simply red, it is blood-red; deep and bright as drops from living veins. It is soft, flesh-like, and in the beginning shows simply a surface of small, close, lapping, sheath-like points, as a pine-cone does. ”

“ When the cone dies, the seeds it harbors live on. During the winter months the squirrels improve every fair day to gather pine seeds for their present needs and their future wants. If you have ever watched a squirrel open up a pine cone, you have wondered how he learned so well the art of getting the seeds out easily. He handles the cone as adeptly as a trained athlete might handle a weight. ”

“ Sometimes it will bite off the cone and carry it to a neighbouring bough, or fly with great difficulty some ten or twenty paces to another tree where it can be opened, for a suitable spot is not to be found on every branch. If the cone is large, the little creature tears its way through the [90] middle of the outside with its upper mandible, inserts its half-opened beak, and forces an opening by a sideway motion of the jaws; it is then easy for it to pick out the seeds, which are soon swallowed. The breaking up of the husks produces a cracking sound, that is heard very distinctly from below. ”

“ An examination of these pieces discovers adhesion only on a narrow ventral border under the apophysis and on a corresponding dorsal border back of the apophysis. The rest of the scale is not adherent, so that the seed is free to fall at the opening of the cone.
The serotinous cone is a gradual development, wanting in most species, rare in a few, less or more frequent in others. A similar evolution of the persistent cone, of the oblique cone and of the cone-tissues has been already discussed. ”

“ Crossbills have the easier time, feeding as they do on the seeds of the pine, for these are always available. No sound seems better to accord with the spirit of a still cold winter day than this faint crackling of opening cones, forced asunder by the [Pg 163] shearing motion of the peculiar bills of these birds. Surely here is an adaptation to definite ends. Nature produces a cone that cannot readily be opened, and, as if relenting, produces a bird to open it. The wings of the seeds come zigzagging to the ground as the feast continues overhead—all that is destined to be planted. ”

“ The cone is made to revolve on its axis slowly over an orifice under which there is a powerful fan, which maintains a strong inward draught of air through the holes in the cone. At the side of the cone, and with an opening towards it, is a trunk or box from which the fur to be made into a hat is thrown out by the rapid revolution of a brushlike cylinder, and as the cloud of separate hairs is expelled from the trunk, the current of air being sucked through the cone carries the fibres to it and causes them to cling closely to its surface. ”

“ I watched the bird closely until it flew away to its companions in the branches above, and then I went and picked up the small cone upon which it had been working so intently, and found that the scale-like processes of the cone had merely been torn asunder (not severed from the central "core," as a Squirrel does its work) , so that the immature seeds could be extracted by the scissors-like beak. ”

“ They are usually kept in the cones until they are wanted, and will then retain their freshness for some years. The squirrels eagerly seek after the fruit of this pine and almost subsist upon it. They take the cone in their paws and dash out the seeds, thus scattering many of them and helping to propagate the tree. ”

“ Each scale of which the cone is formed is hollow at the base and contains a seed much larger than that of any other species. When the cone is ripe, it is gathered by the owners of the forest; and when thoroughly dried on the roof or thrown for a few minutes into the fire, it separates into many compartments, from each of which drops a smooth white nut in shape like the seed of the date. ”

“ Cones from 6 to 25 cm. long, ovate or subcylindrical, short-pedunculate; apophyses pale tawny yellow, or yellow ochre, lustrous, often prolonged and more or less reflexed, thick, the margin together with the umbo raised above the surface of the cone.
This species grows on the Rocky Mountains from Alberta in the Dominion of Canada to Chihuahua in northern Mexico and ranges westward to the eastern slope of the Sierras and to the southern mountains of California. The wood, where accessible, is manufactured into lumber. It may be seen in the Arnold Arboretum and in the Royal Gardens at Kew. ”

“ As the days get warmer these cones grow larger and larger, and one day you will find the scales opening as a fir cone does when it is ripe. Underneath each scale are hidden two seeds, and from the top [18] of each seed rise two slender horns. There are no wings to the seed, as in the Birch tree. These seed cones grow fatter and larger all summer, and by autumn their scales, instead of remaining green and soft, have become a dark reddish brown colour and are hard and woody. ”

“ The numbers of cones hoarded for winter by each squirrel varies with different winters and also with individuals. I have many times counted upwards of two hundred per squirrel. During years of scanty cone-crop the squirrels claim the entire crop. The outcry raised against the squirrel for preventing far extension, by consuming all the seeds, is I think in the same class as the cry against the woodpecker; it appears a cry raised by those who see only the harm without the accompanying good. ”

“ The big, rough, burly cones, five to eight or ten inches in length and five or six in diameter, are rich brown in color when ripe, and full of hard-shelled nuts that are greatly prized by Indians and squirrels. This strange-looking pine, enjoying hot sunshine like a palm, is sparsely distributed along the driest part of the Sierra among small oaks and chaparral, and with its gray mist of foliage, strong trunk and branches, and big cones seen in relief on the glowing sky, forms the most striking feature of the foothill vegetation. ”

“ Upon lighting one of these cones with a match, you see something similar to a 4th of July exhibition of fireworks. Sparks fly in every direction, and as the cone burns down it throws out and is surrounded with what appears to be grass; at the same time a large snake uncoils himself from the burning cone, and lazily stretches out in the grass, which at last burns to ashes, but the snake remains as a curiosity unharmed. They are not at all dangerous, and can be set off in the parlor if placed on some metal surface that will not burn. ”

“ Occasionally the squirrel seemed to get his wires crossed and, instead of dropping a cone, would run all the way down the trunk with it.
Sometimes twigs bearing a cluster of cones are nipped off. In two or three sizeable caches all the cones were in clusters still attached to twigs. Perhaps this rather efficient method of handling cones is at times accentuated by certain individuals. ”

“ Cinderilla was likewise called up to them to be consulted in all those matters, for she had excellent notions, and advised them always for the best; nay, and offered her service to dress their heads, which they willingly accepted. As she was doing this, they said to her, Cinderilla, would you not be glad to go to the ball? Ah! said she, you only jeer me, it is not for such as I am to go thither. Thou art in the right of it, replied they; it would make the people laugh to see a Cinder-breech at a ball. Any one but Cinderilla would have dressed their heads awry ”

“ The first is Conus, a large and beautiful genus, including many rare and valuable species. Shell univalve, turbinate, aperture effuse, or having the lips separated by a sinus, linear, without teeth, pillar smooth. In their natural state the shells are usually covered with an epidermis; but will bear a brilliant polish. C. textilis, cloth of gold, is valuable. C. generalis is sometimes sold for twenty guineas. The example on the table is C. Ebræus, or Hebrew cone. (Plate 6.) Species one hundred and fifty-five; not one British. The greater number are brought from the Indian Ocean ”

“ This is the ancient way of filling a hop pocket; a machine is used now in large kilns, but here, where there is only one cone, indicative of a small garden, the old method is followed.
The steps on which I sit lead up to the door of the cone. Inside, the green hops lie on the horsehair carpet, and the fumes of the sulphur burning underneath come up through them. A vapour hangs about the surface of the hops; looking upwards, the diminishing cone rises hollow to the cowl, where a piece of blue sky can be seen. Round the cone a strip of thin lathing is coiled on a spiral ”

“ Robert Brown was the first to give a clear description of the morphology of the Abietineous cone in which carpels bear naked ovules; he recognized gymnospermy as an important distinguishing feature in conifers as well as in cycads. Another view is to regard the cone as an inflorescence, each carpellary scale being a bract bearing in its axil a shoot the axis of which has not been developed; the seminiferous scale is believed to represent either a single leaf or a fused pair of leaves belonging to the partially suppressed axillary shoot. ”

“ The aperture is so narrow that it is difficult to understand how the animal gets in and out. The olives are very numerous in individuals; when one is found hundreds are sure to reward a patient search.
Probably no more distinct family of mollusks exists than the Conidae, the family of cones, their beautifully decorated shells and the large number of species making them a favorite with collectors. The shell is in the form of an inverted cone, gracefully rounded, the aperture being but a narrow slit extending nearly the whole length of the shell. ”

“ A most peculiar cone is that of a variety of the Norway pine, which, among other species brought from Europe, is valued for ornament. The common jack-pine of the Middle States hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones with dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits or seed-holders of the pine, but the seeds themselves are found at the base of the scales, or parts of the cones, attached in pairs. Each cone, like an apple, has in its care a number of seeds, which it guards against various dangers until a kindly soil encourages the rather slow germination characteristic of the order. ”

“ Harold would say. "Her only home was a drygoods box on the end of a tumble-down dock. She sold fish for a living and ate all that were left over. She never ate anything but fish. She had nineteen stepsisters with red hair, and a cruel stepmother, who was a witch. She wore a potato sack for a dress and never saw a shoe in her life until last month. When captured, she was fourteen miles out in the lake chasing a whale. Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen, to see the Cinder Pond Savage."
Harold's friends seemed to consider this amusing; but Jeanne found it most embarrassing. ”

“ Shell smooth, fulvous-white, with broad dark chesnut bands and transverse lines of dots; spire obtuse, convex, striated, depressed. C. augur. Lamarck Annal. Mus. xv. 277. Encycl. Méth. 333. 6. Conus magus. Gmelin 3392. 57. Martini ii. 58. 641.
The Girdled Cone is conspicuous among the beautiful shells of this extensive family, by the broad and rich chesnut bands, which are either two or three in number, and more or less broken into spots; in high-coloured shells the minute lines of dots between them are also of the same colour. It is not a common species, and inhabits the Asiatic ocean. ”