Range of Abies alba (6).
Common Names
European or common silver fir (1).Taxonomic notes
Syn. A. pardei Gaussen (1).Description
Tree: Tree up to 45-55 m. tall and 200-260 cm dbh, with a long clear bole surmounted by a pyramidal crown that becomes flat-topped with age (1).Bark: Smooth, gray, scaly, with resin blisters (1).
Branches: Grooved, pale brown or dull gray with a blackish pubescence (1).
Shoots:
Leaves: Shade foliage 2-ranked, spreading horizontally; foliage in sun more or less erect. Needle base twisted, apex notched or rounded; 15-30 × 1.5-2 mm; upper surface dark shiny green and grooved, usually lacking stomata; lower surface glaucous to whitish-green, keeled , with stomata in 5-8 ranks. Buds pale brown to reddish-brown, ovoid with an obtuse apex, sometimes resinous, diameter 8-11 mm, slightly pubescent (1).
Cones: Cylindrical, attenuate at the ends, 10-16 × 3-5 cm, green when young, turning red-brown (1).
Cone scales: Spathulate, finely pubescent with exserted, reflexed bracts extending about 2/3 the length of the scale (1).
Pollen cones: Blue/violet/red, 1-3 cm long (1).
Seeds: Obovoid, reddish, winged, up to 2.5 cm long (1).
Range
France; Italy; Switzerland; Germany; Austria; Bulgaria; Ukraine: Karpaty Mts.; Byelorussia; at 300-1950 m. (1, 2).Big Tree
Height 59 m, dbh >320 cm, Chernaya Tisa River, Karpatsky National Reserve (Ukraine?) (2). A tree 45 m tall, dbh 296 m, grows at Strone House, Strathclyde, Great Britain. Another, 50 m tall and 201 cm dbh, is at Raehills, Dumfries & Galloway, Great Britain (4).Oldest
A tree-ring chronology covering 411 years, presumably based on living tree material, was collected in 1952 in Bayerischer Wald, Germany (48° 45'N, 13° 0' E) by B. Becker (5).Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
Foliar loppings of European silver fir in Czechoslovakia have yielded 1,380 tonnes/year of essential oils (7).Observations
Remarks
Citations
(1) Silba 1986.(2) Vladimir Dinets, e-mail communication, 2-Jan-1998.
(3) Vidakovic 1991.
(4) Mitchell et al. 1990.
(5) Data accessed at the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program Tree-Ring Data Search
Page, 24-Feb-1999. URL:
http://julius.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ftp-treering.html.
(6) Atlas Florae Europaeae 1998.
(7) J. Cermak and M. Penka. 1979. An attempt to estimate potential production of volatile terpenes from the logging by-products of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). Planta Medica 36: 3, 252.
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This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.geocities.com/~earlecj/pi/ab/alba.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
E-mail:
earlecj@conifers.org
Last modified on 16-Mar-2000