Before there was this… and this.. and this and this and this… …there was this.

The humble pine cone.

It’s more than a Christmas decoration.

It's an ancient form of tree sex.

This is a female pine cone This one is male.

Most cone-bearing trees -- they’re called conifers -- produce both kinds.

And each cone has a job to do.

Males?

That’s easy.

They just make pollen -- lots of it -- and let the wind spread it around.

Females hold the seeds -- they’re tucked deep in there, inside each of those armor-like scales.

She has to protect them.

Keep them from being eaten.

Be like a fortress.

But the seeds also have to be exposed at some point… in order to catch pollen and be fertilized.

So this humble pine cone has an amazing trick.

For a short time, early in her development, she opens her scales, just slightly, to let the pollen in... Then she closes them back up, while the seeds mature.

Then… when the seeds are ready, her scales flex and stretch.

They open to release the seeds, which grow up into the next generation of trees.

It’s a good strategy.

The largest living things in the world?

The oldest?

They all reproduce with pine cones.

Conifers have been doing this for 300 million years.

A few other plants have shown up since then… With their own faster, maybe more spectacular ways of getting the job done.

They’ve taken up a lot of the best real estate.

Today, conifers only really dominate the landscape in places where flowering plants can’t thrive.

But in those places -- the cold, the dry, the land with poor soil -- the primitive pinecone reigns supreme.