Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest conifers appear in the fossil record during the Late Carboniferous over 300 million years ago. These primitive plants likely originated in dry upland habitats as small trees known as walchian conifers.
Wollemia nobilis was discovered in 1994 within narrow steep-sided sandstone gorges in Australia. The wild population consisted of under 60 adult trees with essentially no genetic variability implying a genetic bottleneck some thousands of years ago.
There are now over 600 living species across 65 to 70 genera. Phylogenomic analysis indicates the gnetophyte group is part of the conifer clade sister to the pine family.
The world's tallest living tree is a coast redwood reaching heights over 100 meters. This species represents the maximum height potential found among all extant conifer lineages.
Reproductive development slows to a halt during each winter season and resumes each spring. The cycle takes one year in genera such as Abies Picea Cedrus and Tsuga.
In the United Kingdom 48% of woodland that is coniferous yields over 90% of timber produced. Sitka spruce is the top species yielding about half of the timber produced there.