White Fir (Abies concolor)

White or Concolor Fir is native to the Rocky Mountains in southeast Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and a little into far northern Mexico; and from southern Oregon down through the mountains of California almost to Mexico; growing in dry rocky slopes down to along rocky streams. It is occasionally sold by larger conventional nurseries in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and upper South of the US. It makes a good quality and reliable landscape evergreen tree. In landscapes it grows in youth about 1 foot/year and it lives over 300 years in nature. It has soft, flat, blue-green needles about 2 to 3 inches long. It bears olive-green to purple-brown erect cones that fall apart upon maturity, like other Fir. I've never seen the cones in the more eastern side of the US. It has a shallow, lateral, spreading root system that allows it to be easily transplanted. I prefer the soft beauty of this coniferous tree over that of the Blue Colorado Spruce; the latter being very painfully, prickly. In its western homeland it gets to be about 100 to 150 feet high with a 2 to 4 feet diameter trunk. In landscapes of the eastern side of the US, it gets about 30 to 60 feet high by about 15 feet wide.

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