Abies holophylla - Manchurian fir description

Scientific name: Abies holophylla  Maxim.  1866

Synonyms: Abies holophylla var. aspericorticea Y.Y. Sun, Picea holophylla (Maxim.) Gordon, Pinus holophylla (Maxim.) Parl.

Common names: Manchurian fir, Needle fir, Chos namu (Korean), Shan song (Chinese)

Description

Tree to 40(-50) m tall, with trunk to 1.5 m in diameter. Bark gray, browning and becoming ridged and furrowed with age. Young branchlets hairy in the deep grooves. Buds 4-8 mm long, sparsely resinous or not. Needles arranged straight out to the sides on flower branches but directed upward on high branches bearing seed cones, 2-4.5 long, glossy dark green above, the tips usually sharp-pointed (not notched like its close relatives, hence the scientific name, “entire leaf”). Individual needles straight and stiff, flat or a little plump in cross section with a large resin canal near the center of either side, without or with a few lines of stomates near the tip above and with 9-11 lines in each grayish green stomatal band beneath. Pollen cones 10-15 mm long, reddish yellow. Seed cones cylindrical, (6-)10-12(-14) cm long, (3-)3.5-4.5(-5) cm across, green (or purplish green) when young, maturing light brown. Bracts less than half as long as the densely hairy seed scales and hidden by them. Persistent cone axis narrowly conical or slightly swollen near the base. Seed body 6-8(-10) mm long, the wing up to 1.5 times as long. Cotyledons five or six.

Cheju (Quelpart) Island, Korean Peninsula and nearby northeastern China, and extreme southeastern Russian Far East. Forming pure stands or more commonly mixed with other conifers in boreal and mixed forests in dryish mountain valleys,; 0-800(-1,500) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Near Threatened

Varieties:

Abies holophylla ’Mint Truffel’ 
Abies holophylla ’Twilight’
Abies holophylla ’Wilson’

Attribution from: Conifers Garden