Over the past year I’ve written about the making of pine tar and the drinking of pine needle tea. But why stop there? Pines are a fascinating group of plants, worthy of myriad more posts, and so my exploration into the genus continues with pine cones and the seeds they bear.

Pines are conifers and, more broadly, gymnosperms. They are distinct from angiosperms (i.e.flowering plants), with the most…