conifer
Americannoun
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conifers
plural
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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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of conifer
1350–1400; Middle English conefere < Latin cōnifer coniferous, equivalent to cōn ( us ) cone + -i- + -fer -fer
Explanation
A conifer is a type of tree that produces cones and evergreen needles. Spot a pile of cones beneath a tree and you've found yourself a conifer. With the word cone embedded in it, it's no surprise that conifer is the term used for cone-producing trees. Conifers can often be identified by their typically long needle-shaped leaves like the kind you find on a Christmas tree. Mostly found in northern forests where the winters are cold, the tough prickly leaves on conifers make them adaptable to the weather.
Vocabulary lists containing conifer
Stump Speech: Tree Terminology
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The United States
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Plants (Botany) - Introduction
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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.
See Examples For:
Geological evidence and plant fossils show that the Triassic landscape of Kariba was dry and dotted with stands of large conifer trees, with green corridors of vegetation following permanent watercourses.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
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 ● Aug. 30, 2025
The conifer forests, which were heavily logged over the last century, will be managed by the tribal government as two protected areas, the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and the Yurok Tribal Community Forest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2025
Angiosperms, or flowering plants, grew back faster and denser than the previously ubiquitous conifer relatives had been.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2024
Over every roof and path hung the boughs of the hemmens, the commonest tree of Winter, a stout conifer with thick pale-scarlet needles.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
"We've got palms, conifers, ferns, begonias, all of those families, plants are hugely important in our living collection and many of them are extinct in the wild," she said.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
The forest sees 15 million visitors each year, making it vulnerable to fires -- quite apart from its sandy soil and vegetation consisting of ferns and highly flammable conifers.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
This is very easy to picture on a hot day in California fire country, where conifers rustle against the eaves and the ground is dusty-dry.
From Slate ● Jan. 14, 2025
The research team combined data from 11 projects, each of which analysed many different research aspects of European beech forests enriched with conifers.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2024
Then I would heat my coffee and sit comfortably on my back step and contemplate wood and water and the quick-rising mountains with crowns of conifers and the fir trees high up, dusted with snow.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
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