This is an image from an animation, visualizing the life cycle of the plant Selaginella apoda. The opposite arrangement of the modified leaves on this cone can be seen, with female (white) and male (red) sporangia visible at the junction of each leaf with the stem and ready to eject spores when mature.
The animation, completed as a masters thesis, was an investigation into procedural modeling of plant growth and scientific visualization. The full animation can be found here.