Welcome to the second Tree Talk Tuesday– if you’re new, check in on the third Tuesday of each month for a few fun facts about the featured tree.
This week the tree is the Douglas Fir.
- Scientific Name: Pseudotsuga menziesii
- Lifespan: 500 years, some live up to 1,000 years
- Height: Up to 250 feet
- Width: Old growth Douglas Firs can be about 5-6 feet in diameter
- Bark: On a young fir tree the bark is smooth and gray. Older fir trees have deeply furrowed bark, often gray and brown with a cinnamon color inside the furrow
- Family: Conifer family. It is evergreen, and produces a cone with seeds
Crazy fact about the Douglas Fir tree… it isn’t really even a fir tree! In fact, scientist have renamed the tree over 20 times. It has been called the Oregon Pine…though not a pine tree. It has been called a Red Spruce…though not a spruce tree. It has also been called a Red Fir…though not really a fir! The scientific name Pseudotsuga means false hemlock, so is it a fir tree pretending to be a hemlock? Or a hemlock pretending to be a fir-spruce-pine tree? Interesting, and confusing!
The needles resemble a spruce needle. They are short and come out from all sides of the branch, but they are not sharp like those of a spruce. Many mammals such as squirrels, mice, chipmunks, and voles, as well as many birds eat the seeds from the cones. Speaking of cones… the cones of true fir trees stand upright on the branches, while the cones of the Douglas fir hang down.
See the lightest color on that illustration? Those are called bracts. It is a good identification characteristic of the Douglas Fir cone. The bract has one longer point that resembles the tail of the Red Tree Vole. These voles nest primarily in the treetops of old growth Douglas Firs, how adorable!
Image used: https://oregonwild.org/wildlife/red-tree-vole
The Douglas Fir is the state tree in Oregon.
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