Abies alba

Abies alba
Abies alba in Silesian Beskids, Poland
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pinophyta
Class:	Pinopsida
Order:	Pinales
Family:	Pinaceae
Genus:	Abies
Species:	A. alba
Binomial name
Abies alba Mill.
Distribution map
Synonyms
Abies argentea Chambray Abies baldensis (Zuccagni) Zucc. ex Nyman Abies candicans Fisch. ex Endl. Abies chlorocarpa Purk. ex Nyman Abies duplex Hormuz. ex Beissn. Abies metensis Gordon Abies miniata Knight ex Gordon Abies minor Gilib. Abies nobilis A.Dietr. Abies pardei Gaussen Abies rinzii K.Koch Abies taxifolia Duhamel Abies taxifolia Desf. Abies taxifolia Raf. Abies tenuirifolia Beissn. Abies vulgaris Poir. Peuce abies Rich. Picea kukunaria Wender. Picea metensis Gordon Picea pectinata (Lam.) Loudon Picea pyramidalis Gordon Picea rinzi Gordon Picea tenuifolia Beissn. Pinus baldensis Zuccagni Pinus heterophylla K.Koch Pinus lucida Salisb. Pinus pectinata Lam. Pinus picea L.

Abies alba, the European silver fir or silver fir, is a fir native to the mountains of Europe, from the Pyrenees north to Normandy, east to the Alps and the Carpathians, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and south to Italy, Bulgaria and northern Greece.

Abies alba is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 40–50 metres (130–160 ft) (exceptionally 60 metres (200 ft)) tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in). The largest measured tree was 68 m tall and had a trunk diameter of 3.8 metres (12 ft). It occurs at altitudes of 300–1,700 metres (980–5,580 ft) (mainly over 500 metres (1,600 ft)), on mountains with a rainfall of over 1,000 millimetres (39 in).

The leaves are needle-like, flattened, 1.8–3 centimetres (0.71–1.18 in) long and 2 millimetres (0.079 in) wide by 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) thick, glossy dark green above, and with two greenish-white bands of stomata below. The tip of the leaf is usually slightly notched at the tip. The cones are 9–17 centimetres (3.5–6.7 in) long and 3–4 centimetres (1.2–1.6 in) broad, with about 150-200 scales, each scale with an exserted bract and two winged seeds; they disintegrate when mature to release the seeds. The wood is white, leading to the species name "alba".

It tends to forms woods with other firs and beeches. It is closely related to Bulgarian fir (Abies borisiiregis) further to the southeast in the Balkan Peninsula, Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) of Spain and Morocco and Sicilian fir (Abies nebrodensis) in Sicily, differing from these and other related Euro-Mediterranean firs in the sparser foliage, with the leaves spread either side of the shoot, leaving the shoot readily visible from above. Some botanists treat Bulgarian fir and Sicilian fir as varieties of silver fir, as A. alba var. acutifolia and A. alba var. nebrodensis respectively.

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Wikipedia