The surface of this dark colored seed cone is weathered. The covering scales are weathered away exposing vascular bundles. The weathered surface also enhances our ability to study the arrangement of scales. The scales are arranged in spirals that go to the right and to the left. Phyllotaxis is the study of patterns made by similar plant parts such as leaves, seeds, and scales and was one of the first biological subjects to be mathematized (Jean, 2001). Phyllotaxis is derived from the Greek words phyllo "leaf" and taxis "arrangement" (Borror, 1988). Scales spiral forming helices around the stem of the cone. The number of left and right spirals are often consecutive terms in the Fibonacci sequence. On this specimen I count 13 to the right and 21 to the left. This is opposite of some of the other A. mirabilis cones pictured on this website. Spiral phyllotaxes exhibit chirality. On a modern Pinus sp. tree one would find just as many left handed cones as right handed cones (Rutishauser & Peisl, 2001).

The following images of the specimen above zoom in on the vascular bundles of the scales. The images were taken with a Canon PowerShot SD770 IS Digital ELPH 10.0 MEGA PIXELS, cropped and resized in Adobe Photoshop CS6. The images were taken in sunlight outside.

Borror, D.J. (1988). Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms. California: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Jean, R.V. (2001). Phylotaxis. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Phyllotaxis.aspx

Rutishauser, R. & Peisl, P. (2001). Phyllotaxy. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group/www.els.net