Caucasian Fir

Appearance

It is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 55–61 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 2 m. In the Western Caucasus Reserve, some specimens have been reported to be 78 m and even 85 m tall, the tallest trees in the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Russian Federation and the continent of Europe.

The leaves are needle-like, flattened, 1.8–3.5 cm long and 2 mm wide by 0.5 mm thick, glossy dark green above, and with two blue-white bands of stomata below. The tip of the leaf is usually blunt, often slightly notched at the tip, but can be pointed, particularly on strong-growing shoots on young trees. The cones are 10–20 cm long and 4–5 cm broad, with about 150–200 scales, each scale with an exserted bract and two winged seeds; they disintegrate when mature to release the seeds.

Naming

There are two subspecies, intergrading where they meet in northern Turkey at about 36°E longitude:
⤷  Caucasian fir. Native to the Caucasus mountains and eastern Pontic Mountains of northeastern Turkey west to about 36°E. Shoots often pubescent.
⤷  Turkish fir. Native to northwestern Turkey, including the western Pontic Mountains as well as Uludağ and other mountains southeast of the Sea of Marmara. Often treated as a separate species, "Abies bornmuelleriana".
⤷  Trojan fir. In Turkey this subspecies is treated as a distinct species. It is endemic to a single location on Kaz Dağı in Balıkesir Province, northwestern Turkey. This subspecies occupies an area of only 164 km2 and is assessed as "Endangered". Its shoots are usually glabrous.