Puget Sound Native Tree
Botanical Garden
People have created across the United States lists of the largest individual tree of many species as well as typical size of each in a mature forest. They call the largest tree a CHAMPION TREE, for bragging rights.
Douglas Fir
Typical dimensions of a large tree of this species in a mature forest:
Height:
Diameter:
Age:
Champion tree for this species:
Height:
Diameter:
Age:
300 ft
8 feet
500 years
330'
12 ft
1400 years
1- Douglas Fir is the tallest tree in Puget Sound, growing to over 300 feet tall and ten feet in diameter.
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Douglas Fir
pseudotsuga menziesii
Douglas firs are majestic, fast-growing evergreen conifers known for their strong, straight wood and distinctive soft, deep green needles arranged all around the twigs, topped by unique cones with three-pronged bracts that look like a mouse's tail. They are crucial timber trees, develop thick, furrowed bark with age, and are iconic to western North America, offering great height and longevity, but are not true firs.
This photo is a picture of a Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar with their roots intertwined as they grew from a common nurse stump (a douglas fir cut in the 1880's in the initial logging). Allen and Janet Philips were married at this tree in 1979.
Douglas Fir
This tree species was growing at the Dolphin Place location when the property was purchased in 1973.
Exact data was not collected at the time. The following is data recorded in 2020.
Largest tree for this species within Dolphin Place Open Space:
Height:
Diameter:
120 ft topped
4 1/2 feet
Douglas fir cones are easily identified by their dangling, oblong shape and unique, three-pointed "mouse tail" bracts sticking out from under each scale, unlike true fir cones that stand upright and disintegrate on the tree. These reddish-brown cones fall to the ground whole, revealing seeds hidden within their scales, which are a favorite food for wildlife, with the distinctive bracts often looking like a mouse's hind feet and tail peeking out.
Douglas fir bark changes dramatically with age: young trees have smooth, gray bark with sticky resin blisters, while mature trees develop extremely thick, corky, deeply furrowed, reddish-brown bark, providing excellent fire resistance and a distinct look. When cut, the inner bark shows wavy light tan and dark brown layers, and the bark's natural acidity makes it a popular, durable mulch. At Dolphin Place the bark of the Douglas Fir hosts an avocado green powder lichen.
Douglas fir needles are soft, flat, about 1-1.5 inches long, and radiate in all directions from the twig, forming a "bottle brush" appearance, with a sweet scent when crushed and two white bands on the underside; they're not sharp like spruce needles, have a slight kink at the base where they attach, and point in different directions, unlike true firs that point upwards.