conifer
Americannoun
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any of numerous, chiefly evergreen trees or shrubs of the class Coniferinae (or group Coniferales), including the pine, fir, spruce, and other cone-bearing trees and shrubs, and also the yews and their allies that bear drupelike seeds.
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a plant producing naked seeds in cones, or single naked seeds as in yews, but with pollen always borne in cones.
noun
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Any of various gymnosperms that bear their reproductive structures in cones and belong to the phylum Coniferophyta. Conifers evolved around 300 million years ago and, as a group, show many adaptations to drier and cooler environments. They are usually evergreen and often have drought-resistant leaves that are needle-shaped or scalelike. They depend on the wind to blow pollen produced by male cones to female cones, where fertilization takes place and seeds develop. Conifers are widely distributed, but conifer species dominate the northern forest biome known as the taiga. There are some 550 species of conifers, including the pines, firs, spruces, hemlocks, cypresses, junipers, yews, and redwoods.
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See more at pollination seed-bearing plant
Etymology
Origin of conifer
1350–1400; Middle English conefere < Latin cōnifer coniferous, equivalent to cōn ( us ) cone + -i- + -fer -fer
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hanson assured me this vast landscape of brush was already making its return as a conifer forest.
From Los Angeles Times
She remembers going on walks, breathing in the scent of conifers and collecting pine cones to take home.
From Los Angeles Times
"The problem is we are losing conifer forest," he says.
From BBC
The spruce bark beetle, or Ips typographus, has been munching its way through the conifer trees of Europe for decades, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
From BBC
A footbridge carries you above a developing conifer thicket.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
