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Firs — Part 3

Red Fir (Abies nobilis, Lindl.)--A broad, round-headed tree 150 to 250 feet high, with trunk 6 to 8 feet through; branches stiff; twigs red velvety. Bark 1 to 2 inches thick, irregularly furrowed, red-brown. Wood hard, pale brown, streaked with red, light, strong, moderately close in texture; sap wood darker. Buds small, blunt, reddish. Leaves blue-green, often glaucous when young, flat, grooved above, crowded to upper side of twigs, and curved backward, 1 to 1 1/2 inches long, on fertile shoots, 4-angled, sharp. Flowers: staminate reddish purple; pistillate scattered on upper limbs, bracts ornate with recurved tips. Fruit oblong, thick, blunt at apex and base, 4 to 5 inches long, purplish or brown, pubescent; scales covered with thin toothed bracts which end in recurving, pencil-like projections. Preferred habitat, mountain slopes at 2,500 to 5,000 feet elevation. Distribution, mountains of western Washington, Oregon and California. Uses: Lumber for interior finish of houses and for boxing. Rarely planted in Eastern States. Needs shelter at Boston. Cultivated in Europe.

The red fir, another giant of the Northwest, attains its best development in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon on elevated slopes facing the sea. An old tree is often 200 to 250 feet high, with a trunk 6 to 8 feet in diameter, crowned with a broad, round head, quite distinct from the spire form usual among firs. There are forests of this tree which furnish, at present in limited quantities, wood for boxing and house finishing. The wood is brownish red, with sap wood of a darker colour. The lumber dealer calls it "larch." As long as better lumber is to be had, these forests will be allowed to wait.

The distinctive features of this tree are its glaucous, blue-green foliage and the stout brown or purple cones, 4 to 5 inches long, and richly ornamented by the bracts which turn back like little pale green scallop shells over each scale.

Red Fir (Abies magnifica, A. Murr.)--A pyramidal tree which becomes round-topped with age, 150 to 200 feet high; trunk 6 to 8 feet through; limbs pendulous, Bark red-brown, 4 to 6 inches thick, scaly and broken into ridges and deep fissures that cross and join; twigs reddish, becoming silvery white. Wood soft, light, weak, durable, red. Buds scaly, ovate, red, lustrous. Leaves 4-angled, pale at first, then blue-green, crowded to erect position on the twig. Flowers: conspicuous; staminate reddish purple; pistillate green with red tips on scales. Fruit oblong-cylindrical cones, 6 to 9 inches long, purplish brown; scales plain, 1 inch broad at apex, closely overlapping and concealing the bracts. Preferred habitat, mountain slopes, at 5,000 to 7,000 feet elevation. Distribution, Cascade range in southern Oregon, throughout the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Uses: Wood makes packing cases and cheap buildings. Tree planted as an ornamental in western Europe. Scarcely hardy in our Eastern States.

"The magnificent silver fir," as John Muir calls it, is one of the noblest trees of the Northwest, a lover of the mountain slopes, which it climbs to two miles above sea level before it reaches its limit. On moraines, at an elevation of 7,000 to 8,000 feet, it grows to a height of 200 to 250 feet and a diameter of 5 to 7 feet. With these noble dimensions there is a richness and symmetry and perfection of finish not to be found in any other tree in the Sierras. The branches are whorled, in fives mostly, and stand out from the straight red-purple bole in level, or on old trees, in drooping collars, every branch regularly pinnated like a fern frond, and clad with silvery needles, making broad and singularly rich and sumptuous plumes.

The flowers are in their prime about the middle of June; the staminate, red, growing in crowded profusion on the under side of the branchlets, giving a rich colour to nearly all the tree; the pistillate, greenish yellow tinged with pink, standing erect on the upper side of the topmost branches; while the tufts of young leaves, about as brightly coloured as those of the Douglas spruce, push out their fragrant brown buds a few weeks later, making another grand show.

"The cones mature in a single season from the flowers. When full grown they are about 6 to 8 inches long, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, blunt, massive, cylindrical, greenish grey in colour, covered with a fine silvery down, and beaded with transparent balsam, very rich and precious looking, standing erect like casks on the topmost branches. If possible, the inside of the cones is still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are tinged with red and the seed wings are purple with bright iridescence."--John Muir.

A variety, Shastensis, Lemm., of A. magnifica, is distinguished from the type species only by the yellow bracts that protrude and partially cover the scales of the cones. This form inhabits high elevations in the region of Mount Shasta and also occurs at the lower end of the Sierra Nevada range.