A deciduous forest is a forest full of trees that shed their leaves in the fall and grow back new ones in the spring. These types of trees lose their leaves because it is hard for the tree to maintain a balance of water with all the leaves it needs to feed so that they do their job. The leaves contain a certain enzyme that helps them in photosynthesis it would be hard for the tree to survive without that enzyme ,so the tree spends time absorbing all the enzymes from leaves before fall. The leaves also have a bit of water and nutrients that the tree can use. The leaves turn yellow and get crunchy in the fall because the tree has sucked all the nutrients it can use from these leaves and has prepared for the coming winter, and lack of water. Deciduous trees grow there leaves back in the spring because there is more water in that time than in the winter because the ground freezes in the winter and its hard to absorb water. Coniferous trees are the exact opposite of deciduous trees they have cones so pines and evergreens are coniferous These cones have spores on the bottom that pollinate, so when a bird or rodent comes to eat the seeds on the inside they spread the pollen to other cones. Coniferous trees do not lose their cones in the winter because the tree produces a substance similar to antifreeze in its sap that allows them to keep their needles. This antifreeze protects the cells in the needles from getting frost damage. The cones still fall to the ground because this is part of the trees natural cycle, a cone of a tree can live up from 2 to 5 years. The life of the cone is different among the coniferous trees.
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June 2014
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