A cone fruit is the woody cone of a pine tree lined with scales, in this case of a spruce. The spruce-fir is distinguishable from the pine-tree by the fact that its needles occur regularly along the shoots, whereas on the pine-tree they grow in tufts. The spruce-fir has flat, triangular or quadrilateral needles and the pine-tree round ones. The green leathery cones that hang from the branches, turn brown in the autumn. Although the seeds have ripened, they can only fall out when the scales of the cone open, which happens the next spring. In the following autumn the cones fall out of the tree.