Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Coulter Pine produces the heaviest pine cones in the world. Measuring up to a foot or more in length and quite massive (between 5-8 lbs) these missiles, nicknamed "widowmakers," can fall from a height of seventy feet, and have been known to do considerable damage to parked vehicles as well as craniums.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your grandmother Tate, along with Florence Lay and Betty Crimi, pulled many of these cones apart to border their wreaths with. They were able to retrieve enough from the ground in the summer when they were at Camp Maranatha to supply them all year. Grandma also made kissing balls and decorated styrofoam bells using those cones. As I remember, they needed to be taken apart with care so as not to draw blood from the fingers.

barefootkangaroo said...

They are pretty prickly.