Description
Native to the western United States, the concolor fir makes an excellent landscape tree as well as a wonderful Christmas tree. It’s native growing conditions are in the Rocky Mountains. They like fertile, moist, well drained soils but do not handle wet places or heavy clay well. After they are established, they can thrive in soils that are dryer. More heat and drought tolerant than most other firs.
The needles of the concolor fir are a lustrous dark green above, pale beneath, narrow and straight. They are 1 1/2-3″ in length and curve upward. Bluish green to blue to silver in color, flat with a soft waxy coating. The coating helps retain moisture during times of low humidity or low rainfall. It also helps them to retain needles for a long time after being cut for Christmas.
Cones on the concolor fir are erect, as in all true firs, 3-5″ long and 1″ wide. They are conical in shape, greenish or purple when new and brown with age. When the seeds fall off, only a stem remains. The young cones are beautiful in the spring and early summer!
The bark on concolor fir is smooth and gray on young trees. Old trees have fissured and scaly bark. Concolor fir wood is light, soft, weak, coarse-grained with wide rings and lighter in color. It is not usually considered a lumber tree.
