I am into wildlife trees. I plant mast trees, like oaks and chestnuts, but my biophilia extends to all trees including conifers like Douglas fir and Sitka spruce. I saw this pic of a Douglas fir in Steve’s backyard and thought it was worth posting. I didn’t know Douglas fir was down there.
The range map suggests it is a glacial relic trapped on sky islands that far south. The interior Douglas fir is dry land adapted and smaller versus the more commonly known huge west coast firs.
This news on Douglas fir shows some of the taller ones recently found. There is speculation that Douglas fir once topped 400 feet as the world’s tallest tree before cutting began. Michael Taylor and Steve Sillett featured in the piece were also the focus of the The Wild Trees book. That book received good reviews and I enjoyed it. I have a tall emergent spruce visible from the house that stands alone in the hardwood. For years I wondered how tall it was. I finally measured it with comparative triangles and Taylor checked it on LIDAR data I sent him. We both got around 103 feet which is a sapling by western standards but 20-30 feet over most all trees here.
There are still plenty of surprises when it comes to trees such as in this companion piece on the new tallest 100m plus Sitka Spruce. I love this picture of it with its wall of green. I have never been to the west coast, or seen its trees, but it has been on my wish list since I was a kid. The west coast rain forest is supposed to have the highest biomass of any ecosystem in the world. It is an expression of life like no other.
The human brain would rather look at nature
We need these places as the above suggests.
On a side note, I was in a friends private tree garden, a couple of years ago, and got a look at a Sitka spruce. The first thing you notice is the needles are like needles. Painfully sharp. Why a tree, that is so tall and out of reach of browsers, needs such sharp needles I haven’t heard a reason for.
In the 80’s a biologist friend and I wandered around with muzzle loaders in the mountains east of Rudioso, on BLM or National Forest land. Not only were Douglas Firs there, but I was told that if we saw any wild turkeys , they would show up at the Douglas Fir level and around the trees. Sure enough, when we found the trees in the high canyons , lo and behold there were the turkeys. Merriams , I believe. Could have hit the turkeys with a rock but they were out of season and we had the opportunity to wave goodbye and continue to look for mule deer. Missed a shot at 50 yards at the biggest mule deer I’ve ever shot at , but that’s another story.
I was in love then and still am with the area, the tree, turkeys and mule deer. More passions in my life than I can indulge with the justice they deserve.