THE PINE FAMILY IS OLD 
developed female flowers. Their seed germs develop 
along the ridge of what is to be a cone. They are not 
hidden away in elaborate blooms. They are what the 
botanists call naked seeds. The male flowers of the pine 
cluster about the bases of new, green sprigs and make a 
good deal of a show in yellow and scarlet in the spring¬ 
time. They produce the pollen, which finally fills the 
woods with its drifting, yellow powder. The winds waft 
grains of it to the naked germs on the growing cones. 
They are fertilized, and seeds result. 
The younger trees that arrived in later ages developed 
their broad leaves and elaborate flowers, set nectar in 
them as a bribe to bees, and got their pollen carried by 
the bees from one to the other. But there were no bees 
when the pine trees developed, and so they had to depend 
on the wind. 
In later times various trees came to depend on animals 
and birds to carry their seeds abroad, that they might 
find new places in which to grow. The apple made itself 
good to eat, so that man or beast might carry it away, eat 
it, and throw its core, containing the seeds, on the ground. 
But the pine tree put wings on its seeds, that they might 
ride away on the wind. When they are ready to take 
flight, the cone opens and lets a seed out from the base 
of each of its scales. The seed has wings and may ride 
down the wind for half a mile before it stops. 
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