WHAT KIND OF "CHRISTMAS TREE" HAVE YOU?

Perhaps the accompanying sketches will enable you to determine the correct name of your tree for the broad term "Christmas Tree" embodies a number of different species of evergreens that are favored for Yuletide decoration. Although cones are included we rarely find them on trees that are small enough for this use and so the needles offer the most reliable means of identification.

The True Fir -- the group which includes the Balsam of the east and the Alpine Fir of the western mountain regions -- are probably most widely used in this respect. The branches are thickly clad with needles which are flat in cross section and soft to the touch. Pull a few from a branch, or observe a branch where a few needles have fallen off, and if the tree is a True Fir you will see small but conspicuous round scars at the point where the needle was joined to the stem. The ends of most True Fir needles are blunt and usually have a small notch at the tip as well. However if you live in the west -- and particularly in the Northwest -- the chances are that your tree in a Douglas Fir. This tree belongs to a different genus than the True Firs and is distinct from them in several respects. Botanists know the True Firs as Abies and the Douglas Fir as Pseudotsuga. When one is lucky enough to find a cone of a Douglas Fir "Christmas Tree" its identity can never be mistaken for it is very distinctive. It is about 3 or 4 inches long and long, three pointed bracts protrude from between the cone scales. The needles, however, resemble the True Firs for they are also flat and soft to the touch. Yet they are generally much narrower and do not leave the characteristic leaf scars on the branch when they are removed.

Hemlock sometimes caters to the ranks of "Christmas Trees". Here again we find a tree with soft, flat needles. But they are quite different from either the True Firs or Douglas Fir. First they are very much smaller being usually about 1/2" long and rarely 3/4" in length and they are grouped so closely together that they give the foliage a lacy effect. On the upper side they are a dark and lustrous green while underneath they are tinged with a silver grey. The cones are small and occur at the ends of the branchlets.

Where Spruce is concerned we can rarely make a mistake for the needles are sharp and harsh to the touch. Some species are more pronounced in this character than others but all have it to some degree. Individually the needles are four sided in cross section and when they fall, or are pulled, from the branches they leave a small, woody base by which the needle was joined to the stem -- giving the bare branch a very rough appearance. Sometimes Pine or Cedar is used but this is only rarely the case. Most everyone knows the Pine while Cedar, as we know it (there are no true cedars native to the United States) has flat, scale like foliage.