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Abies concolor, the white fir, concolor fir, or Colorado fir, is a tree in the pine family Pinaceae. This tree is native to the mountains of western North America, including the Sierra Nevada and southern Rocky Mountains, and into the Sky island of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Northern Mexico. It naturally occurs at elevations between .
It is popular as an ornamental landscaping tree and as a Christmas tree.
The gray bark is usually at least thick, and brown-hued inside. The leaves are needle-like, flattened, long and wide by thick, green to glaucous blue-green above, and with two glaucous blue-white bands of stomatal bloom below, and slightly notched to bluntly pointed at the tip. The leaf arrangement is spiral on the shoot, but with each leaf variably twisted at the base so they all lie in either two more-or-less flat ranks on either side of the shoot, or upswept across the top of the shoot but not below the shoot.
The conifer cone are long and broad, green or purple ripening pale brown, with about 100–150 scales; the scale bracts are short, and hidden in the closed cone. The winged are released when the cones disintegrate at maturity about 6 months after pollination.
White fir can live over 300 years.
| In the United States, at altitudes of in the Rocky Mountains through Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. and on the higher Great Basin mountains of Nevada and extreme southeastern California, and a short distance into northern Sonora, Mexico. | |
| A larger tree growing to tall. Foliage flattened on lower crown shoots, the leaves often raised above the shoot on upper crown shoots but not often strongly upcurved; leaves mostly , and only weakly glaucous on the upper side with few or no stomata. Tolerates winter temperatures down to about . The United States Department of Agriculture plants database describes this subspecies as the full species Sierra white fir – Abies lowiana (Gordon & Glend.) A. Murray bis. | In the United States, at altitudes of from the Cascade Range of Central Oregon south through California (Klamath Mountains, Sierra Nevada) to northern Baja California, Mexico. |
The specific epithet concolor means "all one color".
Like grand fir, white fir is more shade tolerant than Douglas fir, but less so than western hemlock and western redcedar. White fir is a climax species, which means the forest has reached complex maturity in forest succession in western coniferous forests of the U.S. White fir and yellow pine (ponderosa pine/Jeffrey pine) have co-existed for millennia in old growth forests throughout their range. In the presence of logging of large diameter trees and exclusion of cleansing wildfires, young trees have become abundant over the past two centuries. White fir had been regarded as a pest in the past by those in the lumber industry, but this opinion has changed. White fir is now one of the most important of all commercial softwoods according to the Western Wood Products Association.
The white fir trait of retaining lower limbs creates an escape route for medium-to-small forest birds (such as spotted owl) from larger flying predators and provides a drip zone around the roots for collecting moisture. The retained limbs can become a fuel ladder that allows flames to climb up to the canopy. Limbing-up white fir, instead of removing medium to large diameter trees, in areas where the public is more likely to start fires can help keep other trees and specifically giant sequoia from experiencing canopy fire. Recent concern for sequoia groves has caused agencies to call for removal of white fir in the Sierra Nevada. While sequoia seedlings and young saplings are highly susceptible to mortality or serious injury by fire; mature sequoias are fire adapted with: fire-resistant bark, elevated canopies, self-pruning lower branches, latent buds, and serotinous cones. The sequoia ecosystem is incomplete without the mixed pine/fir and oak that make up the mid and understory. Giant Sequoia's cones release seeds when the heat of fire triggers them to open while the thick bark protects the inner cambium from fire damage. The Giant Sequoia of the Sierra Nevada
This tree is host to fir mistletoe ( Phoradendron pauciflorum) and fir dwarf mistletoe ( Arceuthobium abietinum), two species of parasitic plant. It is attacked by many types of insects, such as the fir engraver ( Scolytus ventralis).Maloney P. E. & D. M. Rizzo. (2002). Pathogens and insects in a pristine forest ecosystem: the Sierra San Pedro Martir, Baja, Mexico. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32:3 448-57.
Deer browse the foliage of this species and porcupines chew the bark. Songbirds, grouse, and various mammals eat the seeds.
White fir is a preferred construction species because of its nail-holding ability, lightness in weight, and resistance to split, twist, and pitch. It is straight-grained, non-resinous, fine-textured, stiff, and strong.Western Wood Products Association (WWPA)
It is popular as a Christmas tree and for Christmas decoration owing to its soft needles, generally excellent needle retention and abundance. It is often marketed as concolor or white fir.
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Uses
White fir and grand fir were used by Native Americans for medicinal use involving powdered bark or pitch to treat tuberculosis or skin ailments. The Nlaka'pamux used the bark to cover lodges and make canoes. Branches were also used as bedding.
Cultivation
White fir is widely planted as an ornamental tree in parks and larger , particularly some of subsp. concolor selected for very bright glaucous blue foliage, such as cv. 'Violacea'. The dwarf cultivar 'Compacta', growing to a maximum height and spread of , has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
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Further reading
External links
Categories: Concolor, Flora Of The Southwestern United States, Flora Of Baja California, Flora Of Chihuahua, Flora Of Colorado, Flora Of Idaho, Flora Of Montana, Flora Of New Mexico, Flora Of Sonora, Flora Of Wyoming, Natural History Of The California Coast Ranges, Natural History Of The Peninsular Ranges, Trees Of Northern America
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