PurFact

Recognising Conifers

18 questions · Nature

A walk through a winter forest: everything is green, everything has needles, and yet you are not looking at one tree but at half a dozen species side by side. Photos of the whole tree are little help in telling them apart: from a distance a spruce looks deceptively like a fir. Anyone who really wants to recognise conifers looks at the details, and that is exactly what this pack shows: cones, twigs, bark and fruits. The spruce lets its cones hang down and pricks when you reach for it. The fir, by contrast, is soft, has two white stripes under every needle and holds its cones upright like candles until they fall apart on the tree. The pine bundles its long needles in pairs and glows orange-red high up on the trunk. The larch is the only native species that sheds its needles in autumn, after they have turned golden. The Douglas fir from North America gives itself away with cones from which little mouse tails peek out, and needles that smell of lemon. Then there is the poisonous yew with no cones but red seed coats, the prickly juniper with its blue-black berries, and the thuja, or arborvitae, with flat scales instead of needles. After every answer the ‘How to recognise it’ box explains what to look for outdoors: so that you could identify the tree with your eyes closed, just by touch and smell. Did you know that most of the ‘pine cones’ children collect in German forests are actually spruce cones?

Practise for free

PurFact brings every card back right before you would forget it. That's how knowledge sticks.

All questions with answers

Spruce

Foto: Agnieszka Kwiecień (Nova) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer does this cone come from?

Show answer

Spruce

Fir

Foto: Jerzy Opioła · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer does this cone come from?

Show answer

Fir

Pine

Foto: George Chernilevsky · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer does this cone come from?

Show answer

Pine

Larch

Foto: Jens Jäpel · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer does this cone come from?

Show answer

Larch

Douglas fir

Foto: Luis Apiolaza · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer does this cone come from?

Show answer

Douglas fir

Spruce

Foto: Simon A. Eugster · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Spruce

Fir

Foto: Nefronus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Fir

Pine

Foto: Radio Tonreg from Vienna, Austria · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Pine

Larch

Foto: Hans Gasperl (Gaha) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Larch

Yew

Foto: Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Yew

Juniper

Foto: Crusier · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Juniper

Thuja

Foto: Joshua Mayer from Madison, WI, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer is this twig from?

Show answer

Thuja

Spruce

Foto: User:Gerhard Elsner · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer has this bark?

Show answer

Spruce

Fir

Foto: Crusier · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer has this bark?

Show answer

Fir

Pine

Foto: Akkbula · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer has this bark?

Show answer

Pine

Larch

Foto: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer has this bark?

Show answer

Larch

Yew

Foto: Dixie (Wikimedia Commons) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer bears these fruits?

Show answer

Yew

Juniper

Foto: Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Which conifer bears these fruits?

Show answer

Juniper

How PurFact works

Practise for free

Nature: all topics →