Description: Large, resinous, aromatic tree with tapering, irregularly angled trunk and narrow, columnar crown, becoming open and irregular; gaunt and columnar with great age.

Height: 18-45m

Diameter: 0.9-1.5m

Leaves: evergreen; opposite in four rows; 3-12 mm long. Scale-like; side pair keeled, long-pointed, overlapping next pair, extending down twig; very aromatic when crushed (smell of turpentine); shiny green.

Bark: light or reddish-brown; thick, deeply and irregularly furrowed into shreddy ridges. Coarse plates curl outwards at top and bottom, even on young trees.

Twigs: much-branched and flattish; with wedge-shaped joints longer than broad; composed of scale-like leaves. Shoots green at first, then red-brown.

Flowers: Both sexes on same tree; males 3-4 mm, drop-shaped and golden, profuse in some years, on the ends of minor branchlets.

Cones: 2-2.5cm long; oblong; hanging down at end of slender, leafy stalk; reddish-brown; composed of six paired, hard, flattened, pointed cone-scales; only two fertile. Seeds four or fewer in cone, paired, with two unequal wings. Ripen first season and seeds start to fall in late summer.

Habitat: Mountain soils; in mixed coniferous forests. Favours warm dry hillsides, but even there seldom in pure stands. California plant communities Mixed Evergreen Forest (m19) and Yellow Pine Forest (m14).

Range: W Oregon south to S California and extreme W Nevada; also N Baja California; at 350-2100m.

Seldom bigger than 45m in Sierra Nevada, but record is 68m in Oregon. Oldest recorded was 542 years with a diameter of 1.2 m. Old trees have an extensively developed lateral root system and are thus very wind-firm. Although stands of young trees are killed by fire, the very thick bark protects mature trees. Discovered in 1846 by Col. Frémont, introduced to England by Jeffrey for the Oregon Association in 1853. Original trees grew to 12-20m in 50 years, and largest now 30-40m. Growth in May-August, up to 60 cm in young trees. Rarely ripens seed in UK. For reasons as yet unexplained, grows very narrow and columnar in England, more so further east. Extremely hardy, it tolerates temperatures down to -30°C (zone 5).

Information: Audubon (1980), Lawrence (1985), Mitchell (1988), Leathart (1991), Bean II.

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune, Cumbria.

Purchased: 1993.03.16, by Marion Luck, three specimens at 1.5-2 ft.

Planted: One 1993.04.03, at B41E, two further 1993.04.17 at B36E and B46A, all in what was to become the "Pacific Northwest Temperate Rainforest" zone.

Progress: there are marked differences between these three trees, although at first sight there is little to choose between the sites. B36E is perhaps a little more shaded and drier than the other two sites (high shade from 25m Ash trees), and this tree barely managed 10 cm per year at first, reaching 1.1 m by 1998.10.07, though to seems to be growing a little faster now, being 2.1m by 2004.09.27.

B46E is also perhaps slightly shaded (but also sheltered, by an adjacent holly hedge to its east), but has damper soil, and has done better, reaching 1.5 m by 1998 and 2.7m by 2004. The tree at B41E (in the photograph) has the advantage that it has much less grass growing around it, since quite a bit of the area has had the turf removed and is heavily mulched with Sitka Spruce needles and/or black plastic. This tree made it to 1.8 m by 1998, more than twice the growth rate of the smallest tree. Its 3.6m by 2004, so it is still going upwards at almost double the annual rate, but it is also much bushier and has a thicker trunk. This is all to the good, since its site will become much more heavily shaded over the years, as trees in the area to its south include some very large and rather faster growing species.

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