conifer
Every article and hero in Arborpedia that touches this subject.
№ 073TreesCedar of Lebanon: The Tree of Kings and Scripture
The majestic flat-topped cedar that built Solomon's temple and the Phoenician fleets, appears on Lebanon's flag, and whose once-vast forests have been logged for five thousand years down to a few protected groves.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 081TreesChina Fir: The Conifer That Regrows From the Stump
A major Chinese timber conifer with broad, sharp, spiralling needles — and the rare distinction, almost unheard of among conifers, of resprouting from the cut stump like a broadleaf, so it can be coppiced.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 111TreesCryptomeria: Japan's Sacred Cedar and Its Pollen Problem
The towering national tree of Japan — the sugi — lining the avenues of shrines, reaching thousands of years old on Yakushima, planted across the country for timber, and now the cause of a nationwide hay-fever epidemic.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 165TreesFirs: The Christmas Trees With Cones That Stand Up and Fall Apart
The true firs — soft-needled mountain conifers whose cones sit upright and shatter on the branch, that make the world's favourite Christmas trees, and that gave optics its perfect glue.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 213TreesHemlock: The Graceful Shade Conifer Being Wiped Out by an Insect
A soft, feathery, deeply shade-tolerant conifer of cool forests — not the poison of Socrates — now collapsing across eastern North America under a tiny sap-sucking bug.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 225TreesIncense Cedar: The Tree in Every Pencil
A fragrant Californian conifer whose soft, straight, even grain sharpens without splintering — which is why, with the eastern redcedar, it became the wood the world's pencils are made from.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 319TreesNorfolk Island and Bunya Pines: The Araucarias of Symmetry and Feast
Living-fossil conifers of the southern hemisphere — one a perfectly tiered island tree that became the world's living-room Christmas plant, the other a giant that dropped cannonball cones of nuts and drew whole peoples to feast.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 355TreesPines: The World's Most Important Trees
The great genus of the northern hemisphere — needles in bundles, cones full of winged seed, wood and resin that built civilisations, and a relationship with fire that shaped whole landscapes.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 360TreesPlum-Yews and Torreyas: The Yew-Like Trees That Fight Cancer
Shade-loving, yew-like conifers bearing fleshy plum-like seeds — one genus the source of a genuine leukaemia drug, the other holding a Florida tree so blighted it may be the most endangered conifer in North America.
Jul 2026Read →