Pinecones pop up everywhere during the holidays: attached to ribbons, red berries and green boughs. Look closely, and pinecones offer something to marvel at and study.

Pick one up and study the shape starting at the top or bottom. The lines aren't in rows, but rather a spiral, one of the most common patterns in nature.

Spirals can be seen on seashells, succulent plants and cacti, pineapples, the centers of sunflowers that eventually form seeds and much more. Spirals follow the Fibonacci sequence, a numerical formula that continues to add sequential numbers together, resulting in things growing in that pattern.

Pines rank as one of the Earth's most ancient trees. They were around since the age of dinosaurs, and some scientists have speculated that pinecones were a favorite dinosaur snack. These days, a pile of discarded pinecone cores usually indicates ravenous red squirrels live nearby.

Each pinecone scale — the part that flares out — can harbor a seed. To help propagate future generations of pine trees, pinecones from Minnesota's native red (Norway) and eastern white pines can protectively shutter those scales. They close up if it's wet and rainy and open in dry, breezy weather, when seeds have the best chance of being carried to a new site to take root.

Tight pinecones also open when brought into the warm, dry indoors for holiday décor.

Leila Navidi, The Minnesota Star Tribune
A pinecone at Como Park in St. Paul.

If you need an excuse to walk off Christmas cookies, hunt for some pinecones, such as the long ones from white pines or shorter, rounder ones from red pines. Coat them in peanut butter, suet or shortening, roll them in bird seed, and hang these pinecone feeders outdoors as a treat for winter birds.

Lisa Meyers McClintick of St. Cloud has freelanced for the Minnesota Star Tribune since 2001 and volunteers as a Minnesota Master Naturalist.