Only a forester or camper would marvel at a ponderosa pine cone. Maybe a firefighter. Or kids rollicking and frolicking in the woods. A pine cone lying on the ground is a natural attraction for children (and probably adults) and they fit nicely in your hand and have a heft and feel that makes them easy to throw.
A ponderosa cone at maturity is about 5 inches long, and 3 inches across at its base, and somewhat pear shaped. The cones, are the fruiting body of the pine, and they are born high in the tree tops in the spring, and produce seeds that fall to the ground and produce new trees. The cones grow quickly and initially are a purple greenish color and mature in two years, turning brown and eventually fall from the tree. Cones have a central axis which is surrounded by overlapping scales and they are armed with a fine point on the end. Small spears that offer protection for the seeds of the pine, from marauding birds and mammals. The seeds are fairly large for a conifer and have a wing that is about one inch long. When the cones open up at maturity the seeds are free to fly and drop to the ground and the wing gives them a boost in seeking new territory.
As kids growing up in the Flathead Valley of Montana we had many a pine cone fight as the ponderosa pine (or pondos as I call them) provided an abundant source of weaponry. We would gather a bunch of missiles and the fight was on, until you ran out of projectiles, but they were abundantly available under most of the pondos. The trees offered cones and also shelter from the barrages of the opponent that was stalking you. We did not intend to harm each other except for an occasionally neighbor kid that would decide to inflict pain by throwing the hardest cone they could find. The deadly green cone that was about as hard as a chunk of granite, complete with sharp spines. The brigands were soon banished from our group.
The cones are also handy also for starting a camp fire as they ignite and burn quit readily. However this feature is not appreciated by firefighters that construct fireline in the woods on steep mountain sides and have to deal with rolling burning cones that can roll across firelines causing the fire to escape.
The American Indians of course were quite familiar with pondo cones, and surely they had many uses for those brownish orbs, and there is at least one game that was played that involved throwing pine cones through hoops. One of the first written descriptions of ponderosa pine was by David Douglas in 1826 in northeastern Washington State. He was however not the first. William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition noted the presence of ponderosa pine cones on the White River of what is now South Dakota, on Sept. 16th, 1804. Washed there from its upper tributaries. The first written observations of the ponderosa pine were made by the Spanish explorer Coronado in the southwest united States in the mid 1500's when his soldiers started to use the name Ponderosa, because the trees were so large large and “ponderous”.
What are the origins of the first pine cone fight? It must have occurred very early in mans existence, deep in the mountains of Africa or Europe. What about in North America? Perhaps the first skirmish occurred in 1805, in the Rocky Mountains, when William Clark, annoyed with Meriwether Lewis, hefted a pondo cone and heaved it at his friend. I have no proof.......but just maybe.
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