White Fir Tree Identification

Size and Form

• The white fir retains its shape, even as it gets older, notes the University of Connecticut Plant Database. The tree has a straight trunk, with branches on it all the way to ground level, creating dense shade under the tree. The white fir, growing in cultivation to between 40 and 75 feet, has a width of from 20 to 30 feet, giving it a narrowed, cone-like shape. Those branches located on the upper part of a white fir grow upward, but the lower ones usually droop down.

Needles

• Picture how the ribs on a rib cage look and you get an idea of the arrangement of the flattened, soft needles on a white fir stem. The needles grow to lengths between 2 and 3 inches. The needles are bluish-green, similar to the color of the foliage on a Colorado blue spruce. There are two white lines running along the undersides of each needle, referred to as stomatal lines. The underside and the upper surface of the needles is the same color.

Cones and Bark

• White fir bark is an ash-gray shade, smooth on the younger trees but showing furrows as the tree ages. The cones, as is typical of all fir trees, grow in an upright position on the topsides of the branches. White fir cones, shaped like miniature barrels, are green when they initially develop. They change to brown or purplish shades when older. Look for these 3- to 6-inch long cones only on the upper third of a white fir; they will not develop on the lower limbs.

Cultivars

• White fir cultivars are in both shrub and tree from. Candicans has a reputation as having strikingly bluish needles. Glenmore is compact in comparison to the parent species, with gray-blue foliage. Compacta is a dwarf form of the tree lacking the pyramidal shape. The shrub form called Dwarf Globe has a thick covering of blue-green needles, with the shrub just 3 feet high and in the shape of a ball.