10 Things You Didn't Know About Conifers
1. Conifers come in all colours of the rainbow, not just green; they can be red, bronze, yellow or even blue.
2. The colour of a Conifer can be influenced by the temperature of it’s habitat. For example, the Thuja ‘Rheingold’ is a yellowy-red in the summer and turns to bronze in the winter, while the Cryptomeria japonica ‘Elegans’ is a greeny-red in the summer and turns to a bronzy-red in the winter.
3. Conifers come in all different sizes, from the 30 centimetre Juniperus communis ‘Compacta’ which is small in comparison to the 125 metre Redwoods which give us the tallest and largest trees in the world. The Redwoods are to be found growing in California.
4. Conifers can be many different shapes. For example, flat and hugging the ground (Juniperus horizontalis), arrow-shaped (Taxodium or the Swamp cypress), tiered (Cedar) and globe shaped (Thuja occidentalis ‘Globose’).
5. Most Conifers are evergreen, but what many people don’t know is that there are five genus which are deciduous. They are the Larix, Pseudolarix, Metasequoi, T0axodium and theGlyptostrobus.
6. Conifers have two different types of leaves, needles and scales, but the Juniperus can have both juvenile and adult foliage depending on its age (it can change from needles to scales over time).
7. Conifers grow in either temperate or tropical climates. However, the Araucaria genus (Monkey Puzzle Tree) can be found in both temperate and tropical climates.
8. Conifers are usually found in either the Northern or the Southern hemisphere. For example, Pinus sylvestris grows in the Northern hemisphere and the Agathis australis grows in the Southern hemisphere.
9. Conifers can be found growing at any height from sea level right up to alpine conditions for example the Pinus mugo grows on the mountains of Central Europe.
10. The Pinus aristata (longeava) is found in the White and Rocky Mountain ranges in the USA and has been carbon ring-dated as the oldest living tree in the world.