Description: Large to very large tree with narrow, pointed crown of slightly drooping branches, the crown becoming flattened with age in large specimens. There are two distinct geographic varieties: Coast and Rocky Mountain.

Height: 25-60m, Coast variety to 90 or 100m in perfect conditions

Diameter: 0.6-1.5m, Coast variety up to 4.4m in ideal situations

Needles: evergreen; spreading mostly in two rows; 2-3cm long. Flattened, mostly rounded at the tip, flexible; dark yellow-green or blue-green; very short, twisted leafstalks.

Bark: reddish-brown, very thick, deeply furrowed into broad ridges, often corky.

Twigs: orange, turning brown; slender, hairy, ending in dark red conical, pointed, scaly, hairless bud.

Cones: pollen cones yellow-red. Seed cones very distinctive, 6-10cm long; narrowly egg-shaped, light brown, short-stalked; with many thin, rounded cone-scales each above a long, protruding, three-pointed bract; paired seeds 5-6mm long with wings longer than the body.

Habitat: Coast Douglas-Fir forms vast forests on moist, well-drained soils; often in pure stands. Rocky Mountain Douglas-Fir is chiefly on rocky soils of mountain slopes; in pure stands and mixed coniferous forests. California plant communities Redwood Forest (m12), Douglas-Fir Forest (m13), Yellow Pine Forest (m14), North Coastal Coniferous Forest (m10), Mixed Evergreen Woodland (m19).

Range: Central British Columbia south along Pacific coast to central California; sea-level to 800m in the north and to 1800m in the south. Also in Rocky Mountains to SE Arizona and Trans-Pecos Texas; down to 600m in north and at 2400-3000m in south; also local in mountains of north and central Mexico.

Coast Douglas-Fir (var. menziesii), is a very large tree with long, dark yellow-green needles and large cones with spreading bracts. Rocky Mountain Douglas-Fir (var. glauca (Mayr) Franco), is a medium sized to large tree (rarely over 40m) with shorter, blue-green needles and smaller (4-7 cm) cones with the bracts bent upward. One of the world's most important timber trees, it is one of the tallest as well, and a popular Christmas tree. David Douglas (1798-1834), the Scottish botanical collector, who sent seeds back to Europe in 1827, is commemorated in the common name. The foliage is consumed by grouse and by deer and elk; birds and mammals eat the seeds. Britain's tallest tree is a Douglas-Fir, planted early in the nineteenth century in a valley sheltered from high winds at the Hermitage, near Dunkeld.

Information: Audubon (1980), FNA 2

Source: Weasdale Nurseries for the type, var. glauca from The Conifer Garden

Purchased: Var. glauca at 1.2m (pot-grown), Feb/March 1993. Two specimens of the type in late autumn 1994 at about 1m.

Planted: 1994.03.18, var. glauca in US strip at B37G, at that time next to SW corner of Nissen Hut (since removed). First of the type on 1994.12.16 at B43G, the second of the Weasdale trees was potted up as an insurance tree until spring 1998, when it was planted at B39H, on the meadow side of the ditch and hedge west of the US strip.

Progress: the Rocky Mountain Douglas-Fir was going well, up to 2.5 m on 1998.10.07, but quite a way off vertical owing to the shading effect of an adjacent Ash tree. However, in late spring 2004, this suddenly shed all of its needles. Later investigation showed a creeping white fungus under the bark, which must just have reached the point of blocking off the supply of water and nutrients from the roots.

The first-planted Coast Douglas-Fir is also fairly well-established, though some damage has occurred to the leaders (two of almost equal height at 2.25 m in 1999) where they have got tangled with an elder bush (now severely pruned). The tree which remained potted for three growing seasons did not make much progress, but seems to have rapidly settled in now it has been planted. It had grown to less than 1.5m by winter 1998/9, but had a healthy looking set of buds.

Back to Tree Index
Bibliography of the sources cited in the "Information" section.
Arboretum home page