Pacific Silver Fir

Pacific silver fir is the fir of the wet, snowy middle slopes on Mt. Hood’s west side. Its needles are glossy green on top and silvery white underneath, colored by bands of tiny pores, and young trees have smooth bark dotted with blisters of resin. The pale gray trunks stand out against the darker bark of the Douglas-fir and hemlocks that grow alongside.

Few trees in the Northwest handle shade better. Seedlings can grow under a dense canopy, and silver fir tends to take over older forests, usually together with western hemlock. It also copes with deep snow. Sturdy seedlings resist being flattened by heavy, wet snow, though trunks on steep slopes often bend at the base from creeping snowpack.

The purple cones stand upright near the top of the tree and fall apart on the branch to release their seeds. Squirrels cut cones and buds, and birds and rodents eat the seeds. Old forests with silver fir give nest sites to northern spotted owls and habitat to Vaux’s swifts and other old-forest species. Thin bark and shallow roots make it easy for fire to kill, but in these damp forests fires are rare, often centuries apart.