Whence
Douglas fir
Plant

Where does Douglas fir come from?

The Douglas fir comes from western North America, from British Columbia south to California and along the Rocky Mountains. It is the tallest tree in the pine family and one of the world's most important timber trees.

A giant of the western forests

The coastal Douglas fir grows from central British Columbia south along the Pacific coast for about 2,200 km, and an inland variety follows the Rocky Mountains. Fossils show that the species never grew wild anywhere but western North America. Coastal trees can reach 100 metres, and old records tell of trees over 120 metres tall. The biggest regularly live more than 500 years. Their bark, up to 36 cm thick on old trees, makes them some of the most fire-resistant trees of the Pacific Northwest.

Not a true fir

Despite its name, the Douglas fir is not a true fir of the genus Abies, nor a spruce, pine or hemlock. Its genus name, Pseudotsuga, means 'false hemlock'. Unlike a true fir's, its cones hang down and keep their scales, and three-pointed bracts stick out from them, said to look like the back half of a mouse. The Scottish naturalist Archibald Menzies first documented the tree on Vancouver Island in the early 1790s, and its species name, menziesii, honours him.

Why people think of Scotland

The common name honours another Scot, David Douglas, born in Scone in 1799, who trained as a gardener. In 1824 the Royal Horticultural Society sent him to the Pacific Northwest, where from 1825 he collected the tree along the lower Columbia River. The seeds he sent home soon made it a garden favourite and an important forestry tree in Britain. Douglas introduced about 240 species of plants to Britain. 'You will begin to think I manufacture pines at my pleasure,' he wrote to the botanist William Hooker.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Pseudotsuga menziesii ↗ · conifers.org ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › David Douglas (botanist) ↗ · historylink.org ↗

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