Douglas firs can grow to over 75m tall. Austrian pines are often used as windbreaks. Corsican pine Pines are the largest family of conifers. They all grow fast and are full grown in less than 20 years - which is why they provide 75 per cent of the world's timber. Typically, they have needle-like leaves.
Cones look very different from flowers but serve the same purpose.
There are male cones and female cones, usually on the same tree. Small male cones make pollen. Wind wafts pollen through the air in yellow clouds to the larger, harder female cones, where it fertilizes the egg. After a year or so the fertilized egg becomes a winged seed, ready to be carried away by the wind. In the colder parts of the world there are vast areas of coniferous forest - especially in Canada and Siberia, where the Boreal forests or taiga extend for thousands of kilometres.