Description: Large Fir with beautiful, spire-like, conical crown of short, down-curving branches and flat, fern-like foliage.

Height: mostly 25-45m, but up to 75m

Diameter: mostly 0.6-1.2m, but up to 2.6m

Needles: evergreen; crowded and spreading forward in two rows; curved upward on upper twigs; 2-4cm long. Flat; often glaucous grey when new; second year shiny dark green and grooved above, two broad silvery-white bands beneath. Aroma of tangerines when crushed.

Bark: Light grey, smooth; becoming scaly and reddish-grey or reddish-brown.

Flowers: Male flowers abundant, fairly large globules on underside of shoot; female seldom seen, near top of tree, red.

Cones: 8-10 × 3.5-5 cm; cylindrical, upright on topmost twigs, purple; cone-scales with fine hairs, bracts short and hidden; paired seeds 10-12 × 4 mm, tan, wings about as long as body, rose to tan.

Habitat: Cool, wet regions, including coastal fog belt and interior mountain valleys; in coniferous forests. California plant communities: Red Fir Forest (m15).

Range: Pacific coast from extreme SE Alaska south to W Oregon; local in NW California; to 300m in the north; 2000m in the south.

The common name refers to the silvery lower surface of the foliage with the word "Pacific" added to avoid confusion with the European Silver Fir Abies alba. David Douglas (1798-1834), the Scottish botanical explorer and discoverer of this species, named it amabilis, meaning "lovely". Although beautiful when young, this tree does not attain a pleasing shape in maturity. Introduced to UK in 1830, biggest specimens now 30-35m x 3-4m, mainly in north and west.

Information: Audubon (1980), Mitchell (1978)

Source: Ardkinglas Tree Shop

Purchased: 2000-06-03 (only one available and quite small)

Planted: 2000-06-15 at B15E, with a handy dead rabbit for slow release fertiliser.

Progress: Despite starting small and hardly able to get to the light when the grass grew long, this tree started quickly and seems to be accelerating, remaining tall and narrow, reaching 2.3m by 2004.09.27.

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