Douglas-fir Morphology Species And Varieties North America

Douglas-fir is the common name applied to coniferous trees of the genus Pseudotsuga in the family Pinaceae. There are five species, two in western North America, one in Mexico and two in eastern Asia. The douglas-firs gave 19th century botanists problems due to their similarity to various other conifers better known at the time; they have at times been classified in Pinus, Picea, Abies, Tsuga, and even (!) SequoiaThe Coast Redwood or California Redwood Sequoia sempervirens is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree in the family Cupressaceae. It is the tallest tree in the world, reaching up to 112 m in height, and 7 m diameter at the base. The oldest known Coast. Because of the distinctive cones, douglas-firs were finally placed in the new genus Pseudotsuga (meaning "false hemlock") by the French botanist Carrière in 1867Events January 8 African-American men granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia January 11 Benito Juarez becomes Mexican president again January 30 Emperor Komei of Japan dies. Crown Prince Mutsuhito is expected to become the next Emperor of J.

The common name honours David DouglasDavid Douglas ( 1799 1834) was a Scottish botanist. The son of a stonemason he was born in the village of Scone north-west of Perth. He attended Kinnoul School and upon leaving he found work as an apprentice gardener in the estate of the 3rd Earl of Mansf, the Scottish botanist who first introduced the tree into cultivation in 1826Events February 11 University College London is founded, under the name University of London''. April 1 Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine. June 14- 15 The Auspicious Incident: Mahmud II, sultan of Ottoman Empire, crushes the last mutiny. Douglas is known for introducing many North American native conifers to EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se. The hyphenA hyphen is a punctuation mark. It is used both to join words and to separate syllables. It is often confused with a dash , which is longer. Hyphenation is the use of hyphens. Rules and customs of usage Traditionally, the hyphen has been used in several w in the common name indicates that douglas-firs are not "true" firs, i.e. they are not members of the genus Abies.

1 Morphology

The douglas-firs are medium-size to large or very large evergreenThis article is about plant types. For other uses see Evergreen (disambiguation Evergreen has two meanings in relation to plants: Evergreen means a plant retaining its foliage year-round (a botanist would say the leaves are persistent or not ''deciduous . trees, to 20-90 m tall. The leaves are flat and needle-like, generally resembling those of the firs. The female cones are pendulous, with persistent scales (unlike true firs), and are distinct in having long tridentine bracts that protrude prominently above each scale.

A Californian Native American myth explains that each of the three-ended bracts are the a tail and two tiny legs of the mice who hid inside the scales of the tree's cones, which was kind enough to be the enduring sanctuary for them during forest fires.

2 Species and varieties

By far the best-known is the very widespread and abundant North American species Pseudotsuga menziesii, a taxonomically complex (Li & Adams, 1989) species divided into two major subspecies; Coast Douglas-fir or 'Green Douglas-fir', on the Pacific coast; and Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir or 'Interior Douglas-fir', in the interior west of the continent; this latter is in turn divided into two varieties, 'Blue Douglas-fir' or 'Colorado Douglas-fir' (var. glauca) in the southern Rocky Mountains, and 'Gray Douglas-fir' or 'Fraser River Douglas-fir' (var. caesia) in the northern Rocky Mountains.

This species is also generally known as simply 'Douglas-fir', or as 'Common Douglas-fir', 'Oregon Douglas-fir', 'Douglas Tree', and 'Oregon Pine'. It can attain heights of 100 m, second only to the Coast Redwood, and is the state tree of Oregon. The specific name, menziesii, is after Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician and naturalist who first discovered the tree on Vancouver Island in 1791. Away from its native area, it is also extensively used in forestry as a plantation tree for timber in Europe, New Zealand, southern South America and elsewhere; it is also naturalised in the British Isles, Chile and New Zealand.

All of the other species are of restricted range and little-known outside of their respective native environments, and even there are rare and only of very scattered occurrence, occurring in mixed forests; all are listed as being of unfavourable conservation status.

2.1 North America

Coast Douglas-fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii subsp. menziesii - Secure
- Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii subsp. glauca - Secure
Mexican Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga lindleyana - Vulnerable
Bigcone Douglas-fir, Pseudotsuga macrocarpa - Lower Risk

2.2 Asia

Japanese Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga japonica - Vulnerable
Chinese Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga sinensis var. sinensis - Vulnerable
- Narrow-cone Chinese Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga sinensis var. gaussenii - Vulnerable
- Short-leaf Chinese Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga sinensis var. brevifolia - Vulnerable
- Yunnan Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga sinensis var. forrestii - Vulnerable
- Taiwan Douglas-fir , Pseudotsuga sinensis var. wilsoniana - Vulnerable

3 References

Peng Li & W. T. Adams. Rangewide patterns of allozyme variation in Douglas-fir. Canad. J. Forest Res. 19: 149-161 (1989).

4 External links

Arboretum de Villardebelle - cone photos Images of cones of selected species
Gymnosperm Database

5 Links to other Pinaceae

Pinus - Picea - Cathaya - Larix - Pseudotsuga - Abies - Cedrus - Keteleeria - Pseudolarix - Nothotsuga - Tsuga Pinaceae

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