Description: Large fir with an open, narrowly conical crown rounded at the tip, and short branches ascending in upper crown, descending in lower.

Height: 20-35 m, sometimes up to 55m

Diameter: 0.3-1.2 m, sometimes up to 2.5m

Needles: evergreen, spreading in two rows; crowded and curved upward on upper twigs; 2-3.5 cm long. Flat or 4-sided, blue-green with whitish lines and a camphor-like odour.

Bark: greyish, thin when young, ageing to thick, reddish-brown, deeply furrowed with ridges wider than furrows..

Cones: pollen cones at pollination are more or less purple or reddish-brown. Seed cones 15-20 cm long, cylindrical, purplish-brown at first, becoming yellowish or greenish brown with age, upright near top of tree. Cone-scales finely pubescent, yellowish bracts mostly hidden, pointed and finely toothed. Seeds reddish-brown; 15 x 6 mm; in pairs with wings about 15 mm.

Habitat: High mountains with dry summers and deep snow in winter. Pretty much defines the California plant community Red Fir Forest (m15), which varies from extensive, almost pure Red Fir stands to a mixed assemblage of conifers.

Range: Cascades of SW Oregon to Coast Ranges of California from sea level to 1400m in the north. Well developed through the Sierra Nevada, rising to 1800-2750m in the south.

Forms the stately forests on the western slopes of the Sierra which first inspired our interest in growing American Pacific slope trees. The characteristic red bark is distinctive at intermediate levels well below timberline, where it often forms extensive almost pure forest. We passed through many groves on our walk from Kings Canyon to Yosemite. Early mountaineers made beds by cuttings and overlapping two rows of the plushy aromatic boughs, an activity that would be unthinkable given today's increased recreational pressure on the Sierra.

Information: Audubon (1980), FNA2 (1993)

Source: Two trees from the Conifer Garden were unfortunately eaten right down to ground level when our own deep snow gave access to rabbits over the fencing erected to protect them. Weasdale nurseries have some which we hope will be available for the 1999/2000 planting season, but as a backup, we have seeds in, awaiting germination...

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