conifer
part of speech
noun (a conifer, conifers); adjective form coniferous (a coniferous forest)
meaning for a pupil
1) A tree or bush that grows its seeds in cones and usually has thin needle-like or small scaly leaves, such as a pine, fir, spruce, cedar, yew or cypress. tree →
2) Most conifers are evergreen: they keep their leaves all year round, so they stay green in winter. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons conifers are one of the big groups of plants: they make seeds but no flowers or fruit, and the seeds sit between the woody scales of a cone. Huge coniferous forests (the taiga) cover the cold north of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia; coniferous trees cope well with snow because their narrow needles and sloping shape let the snow slide off. Christmas trees are conifers. Some of the tallest and oldest living things are conifers: coast redwoods in California and bristlecone pines. In gardens people plant conifers as hedges. Phrases: «a coniferous forest», «conifer needles», «conifer cones».
examples
- A pine tree is a conifer because it grows cones. tree →
- Conifers stay green all winter. tree →
- We collected pine cones under the conifers in the park. tree →
- Our Christmas tree is a conifer called a Norway spruce. tree →
- The coniferous forests of Canada stretch for thousands of kilometres. tree →
- Squirrels eat the seeds hidden in conifer cones. tree →
- The needles of a conifer are really thin leaves. tree →
- The tallest tree in the world is a conifer, a coast redwood. tree →
note
Countable noun: one conifer, many conifers; the adjective is «coniferous». Trap: not every conifer is evergreen — the larch drops its needles every autumn. Also not every evergreen is a conifer: holly and many eucalyptus trees are evergreen but have flowers, not cones. The opposite group in lessons is «broadleaf» or «deciduous» trees like oak and maple. Say: KON-ih-fer.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «conifer» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.