Winter in Minnesota - Identifying Conifers

Many people have a conifer tree in their homes right now as part of their Christmas decorations. It might be a pine, spruce, balsam, or fir. These evergreen trees are all conifers, meaning they have cones on them.  The photo above shows a very large spruce loaded with cones. Big clusters of cones are located by the top of the tree. In Outdoor Nature Explorers class, we sometimes make discoveries on the ground under all the branches.  We search for cones of different sizes and shapes.
There are many great guide books available to help you distinguish spruces from pines. Here is a very helpful website that can help you identify any tree:
https://www.oplin.org/tree/leaf/byleaf.html

As spruce trees get older, the bark gets more rough.