CONIFERS AND LEAVES—

Yup, conifers (a term which describes most of the evergreen trees) have “leaves”. They take the form of needles, of course.

The term “conifer” comes from the fact all conifers produce cones. They are often incorrectly called pinecones since not all conifers that produce cones are true pines.

The cones, also helpful in identifying the tree, are their seeds.

In the above photo you can plainly see conifers shed some of their “leaves” as do deciduous trees at our latitude.

All conifers shed needles. Sometimes the shedding is a slow process but most commonly it occurs all at once in the fall. Because only the oldest needles are shed, the “inner” areas of the tree closer to the trunk become less dense than the outer areas.

As the shedding process begins the needles turn a yellow-brown color. The color change occurs each year, but some years it is more eye-catching.

This photo shows one of my Eastern White Pine trees which was planted as a seedling. It is now about 14 years old.

Like deciduous trees, “leaves” of the conifers can be helpful in identifying the tree. On true pine trees the needles are arranged and attached to the branches in clusters of two (the red pine group), three (the yellow pine group) or five (the white pine group).

If you carefully pluck one of the needle bundles from a branch of this tree and count the needles you will find five of them. The same process with one of my native Scotch Pines will reveal only two needles per bundle.
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Source: Iowa State University, Extension News 11/14/2005. Helpful search terms used otherwise were “Conifer Shed Needles”