The Pacific Northwest is home to a stunning array of Coniferous Trees, and some of the biggest trees in the world.
Cypress Trees
The Cypress Trees (Yellow Cedar) is a medium-sized tree that can reach average heights of 24 m or more, it has a broad, trunk that has vertical grooves. Cedars, both red and yellow, usually spread out widely at the base. The crown is sharply cone-shaped, with branches that spread out. The needles are scale-like, dark bluish-green, slender, and sharp. Cones are round, up to 12 mm in diameter, berry-like in the first year but becoming woody as they mature. Read More….
Douglas Fir Tree
The Douglas Fir trees are large trees that can reach heights of 90 m on the coast and 45 m in the Interior. Older trees have a long, straight, branch-free trunk and a short crown with a flat top. The bark is smooth, grayish-brown, with resin-filled blisters when young, the bark becomes very thick with age and deeply grooved, with dark reddish-brown ridges, sometimes with large patches of running sap. This sap makes a great fire starter. Read More….
Grand Fir Tree
The Grand Fir Tree has a thin bark which makes it susceptible to fire. But since advances in fire suppression have decreased the damage from fires, the grand fir has increased its population in BC. These forests are often home to bears, deer, cougars, owls, woodpeckers, salamanders, frogs, Mice, and voles. The bark is smooth and grayish brown with white spots and resin-filled blisters when young, but the bark becomes rough and scaly with age. Read More….
Juniper Tree
The Rocky Mountain Juniper Tree is small with a wide, irregular crown with a wildly twisted trunk reaching 13 m in height. The needles are flat and twisted, in pairs and barely overlapping but covering the twig in 4 rows, but on young, faster-growing branches the leaves may be longer and more needle-like. They are pale yellowish to green, turning to grayish-green on older branches. The cones are rounded, small, and located at the ends of the branches, and are a bright to dark blue color with a grayish tinge. Read More….
Ponderosa Pine
The Ponderosa Pine Trees are slender and straight trees that grow throughout most of the province including a few spots on Vancouver Island. The needles occur in groups of three and are up to 20 cm long, they are usually a dark green colour. The cones vary in shape from conical to egg shape, up to 15 cm long without stalks. The bark is thin, orangey-brown to grey, and finely scaled. Read More….
Sequoia Tree
The giant Sequoia Tree is one of the world’s largest tree species. They have a fibrous, reddish-brown trunk that is much larger at the base and tapers to the top. When they are young, they have a conical shape to the branches that reach right to the base. When the trees get to be giants, they will have very thick trunks that have no branches for more than 3/4 of the height of the tree. The Giant Sequoia Tree can reach up to 75 meters in height and diameters of more than 7 meters. Read More….
Sitka Spruce Tree
The Sitka Spruce Trees are large trees that can reach heights of up to 70 m tall and 2 m across when mature. It grows along the Pacific Northwest coast in a narrow band from sea level to about 800 m. Sitka’s spruce grow on the BC coast. Sitka’s spruce grows with western hemlock, western red cedar, and yellow cedar. Blacktail deer, black bears, and many smaller mammals abound in the Sitka forest stands. Read More….
Western Hemlock Tree
Western hemlock grows with many tree species. Occasionally, it can develop into pure groups of trees. It can tolerate shade and grows abundantly underneath mature trees, where it provides an important source of food for animals. It grows along both sides of the coast ranges, from sea level to mid-elevations, and in the Interior wet belt west of the Rocky Mountains and on all parts of Vancouver Island. Read More….
Western Red Cedar
The western red cedar is a large tree, up to 60 meters tall when mature, with long drooping branches and a trunk that often spreads out widely at the base. The first people called the Cedar Long Life-Giver and referred to the tree as Mother. The first people used the wood to build their longhouses, ocean-going canoes, for clothing, baskets, rope, medicine and the list goes on. Cedar bark is gathered by peeling it from trees, you can do a cut in the trunk and peel up, strips can be as long as 10 meters. Read More….
Western Yew Tree
The western yew is an important food for black-tailed deer, elk, and several birds including cedar waxwings and nuthatches and various small rodents eat the fruit. In so doing, they scatter the seed away from the tree. It occurs scattered throughout the wetter forests of the coast and the Interior wet belt, primarily at low to mid-elevations. You can find it on all of Vancouver Island. Read More….
White Pine Tree
Western white pine is susceptible to white pine blister rust, which causes portions of the tree to turn an orangy brown colour and die. The rust is difficult to control and prevents the tree from being of commercial importance. I only know of one tree on Vancouver Island that shows no signs of rust, it grows up by twin lakes, this tree is very large and quite impressive. It grows along the portage trail leaving twin lake, it’s one of the biggest white pine trees I have ever seen. Read More….