The Douglas fir is not a fir, a pine or a spruce
Western North America's giant conifer has been called Oregon pine, Douglas spruce and red fir, yet it is none of those. Its genus name means false hemlock, and it is not a hemlock either. Some historical trees topped 120 metres, taller than any living tree on Earth today.
Pseudotsuga menziesii is the tallest member of the pine family and comes in three varieties: coast, Rocky Mountain and Mexican. Trees usually reach 20 to 100 metres, with only the coastal form approaching the upper figure, and trunks commonly span 2.4 metres. Coastal giants often live more than 500 years and the oldest over 1,300; interior trees rarely pass 400. In dense forest the lower branches fall away, so the foliage may begin 34 metres above the ground.
Its bark is its armour. Smooth and blistered with resin on young trees, it becomes deeply furrowed and corky after about 80 years, up to 36 centimetres thick, making the species one of the most fire-resistant in the Pacific Northwest. The hanging cones are easy to identify: three-pointed bracts poke out above each scale, often compared to the hind end of a mouse diving in, with two feet and a tail showing. Its enormous genome was sequenced in 2017.
Two Scots share the naming. The common name honours the botanist David Douglas, who publicised the tree's potential, while the species name recalls his rival Archibald Menzies, who recorded it on Vancouver Island in 1791. Coast Salish speakers of Halkomelem call it lá:yelhp. Native Hawaiians once carved double-hulled canoes from Douglas-fir logs that drifted ashore.
West of the Cascades it dominates nearly every forest type. Small mammals such as shrews and chipmunks eat an estimated 65 percent of each seed crop, porcupines live on its inner bark in winter, and old-growth stands shelter the red tree vole and the spotted owl, whose breeding pairs need at least 400 hectares. Planted widely abroad, it is a prized timber tree but also counts as an invasive wilding conifer in New Zealand, where it is actively controlled.
Source: Douglas fir
