Abies sachalinensis - Sakhalin fir description

Scientific name: Abies sachalinensis  (F.Schmidt) Mast.  1879

Synonyms: Abies akatodo Miyabe ex Sarg., Abies homolepis var. tokunaiae Carrière, Abies nephrolepis subsp. sachalinensis (F.Schmidt) Vorosch., Abies sachalinensis var. sachalinensis, Abies veitchii var. sachalinensis F.Schmidt, Pinus sachalinensis (F.Schmidt) Voss

Infraspecific taxa: Abies sachalinensis var. gracilis (Kom.) Farjon 1990, Abies sachalinensis var. mayriana Miyabe & Kudô 1919, Abies sachalinensis var. nemorensis Mayr 1880

Common names: Sakhalin fir, Hokkaido fir, Todomatsu (Japanese), Pikhta sakhalinskaya (Russian), Yayup (Ainu)

Description

Tree to 30(-40) m tall, or dwarfed at 2-3 m in exposed habitats, with trunk to 1 m in diameter. Bark grayish white, remaining smooth or breaking up into grayish brown scaly ridges with age. Branchlets densely hairy in the prominent shallow grooves between the leaf bases or overall. Buds 3-5 mm long, hairy and moderately to heavily resinous. Needles arranged evenly and densely out to the sides and above the twigs and hiding them, (1-)1.5-3(-3.5) cm long, intense bright green above, the tips blunt, rounded, or slightly notched. Individual needles flat to slightly plump in cross section and with a resin canal near the center of each side (rarely near the lower epidermis), without stomates above and with seven to nine lines of stomates in each white stomatal band beneath. Pollen cones 10-15 mm long, red. Seed cones tapering strongly in both directions from the midpoint, (2.5-)5-7(-8) cm long, 2-2.5(-3) cm across, variously greenish brown through purple to black when young, maturing purplish brown. Bracts yellowish green to reddish brown, a little shorter to a little longer than the densely minutely hairy scales and hidden by them to emerging from and bent back over them. Persistent cone axis narrowly cylindrical to conical. Seed body (4-)5-6 mm long, the wing half to two-thirds as long. Cotyledons four or five.

Sakhalin (hence the scientific name) and southeastern Kamchatka (Russia) to Hokkaidō (Japan). Forming pure stands or mixed with other conifers and hardwoods in subalpine, boreal, and mixed forests; (0-)100-1,650 m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern

Varieties:

Abies sachalinensis ‘Gedreht’  
Abies sachalinensis ‘Korsakov’
Abies sachalinensis ‘Manabe Column’

Attribution from: Conifers Garden