34 BULLETIN 327, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Abies concolor (Gord.) Parry is technically based. Botanists have 

 generally maintained this name, although since its establishment 

 some fifteen other specific and varietal names (now made synonyms 

 of A. concolor) have been published. These names were created 

 chiefly, however, either through confusion of the white fir with other 

 North American firs, or through imperfect knowledge of the variable 

 forms of the tree peculiar to different parts of its extensive range. 1 



One of the best marked varietal forms of white fir well known in 

 cultivation is Abies concolor lowiana (Murr.) Lemmon. It has short 

 pale green foliage and occurs in the California Sierras and in the 

 Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. European dendrologists 

 have segregated five other cultivated varieties, chiefly by the color of 

 their foliage, shape of the leaves, and habit of the crown or of its 

 branches. The characters relied upon to distinguish these latter 

 garden forms do not, however, appear to be sufficiently dependable 

 to warrant maintaining the plants as distinct varieties. 



DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS. 



White fir grows to its largest size in the Pacific region, where it is 

 frequently from 140 to 180 feet, and occasionally over 200 feet, high, 

 with a diameter of from 40 to 60 inches, rare trees being from 5 to 6 

 feet through. In its Rocky Mountain range, however, white fir is a 

 much smaller tree, at best being only from 80 to 100 feet in height, or 

 rarely more, and from 20 to 30 inches in diameter. The massive 

 trunks have conspicuously rough ash-gray bark, which is broken into 

 great, deep, wide furrows and ridges. The bark is very hard and 

 horny and from 4 to 6^ inches thick on the largest trunks (PL 

 XXIV). Bark of the upper stems of large trees and on young trees 

 is smooth and unbroken and grayish, with a slight brownish tinge. 

 The trunks are straight and taper very gradually. The dense crown 

 of heavily f oliaged short branches is an irregular, round-topped cone, 

 extending to the ground on trees in open stands, while in dense stands 

 the crown covers only one-third or one-half of the stem. Young trees 

 have beautifully symmetrical, sharp crowns extending down to the 



According to Elwes and Henry (Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, IV, 780, 1909), 

 the California form of white fir was first introduced into England in 1851, while the 

 Rocky Mountain form of this species was introduced there in about 1872. Trees raised 

 from California seed are said to grow more thriftily in England than stock from Rocky 

 Mountain seed. One tree in Oxfordshire attained a height of 71 feet and a diameter of 

 about 2 feet in 28 years. The largest trees growing in England are from about 70 to 90 

 feet in height and from 20 to 40 inches in diameter. The German Government purchased 

 considerable quantities of white fir seed, both of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific slope - 

 forms, in the early nineties for experimental forest planting in Germany, but -the results 

 of these trials* are unknown to the writer at 'present. Doubtless the Rocky Mountain 

 form has proved more adaptive to German conditions, judging from the excellent growth 

 of Douglas fir from this region and the failure there of Douglas fir plants raised from 

 Pacific slope seed. White fir from the Rockies and the Pacific slope grows thriftily in 

 eastern United States but stock from the interior mountains is far better adapted to this 

 region than the more western form, while for ornamental planting the Rocky Mountain 

 trees are much handsomer in form and in bluish-tinged foliage. 



