Abies concolor white fir

Abies concolor branchlet. From An Illustrated Manual of Pacific Coast Trees, Howard E. McMinn & Evelyn Maino

The most widespread fir in the West, white fir can be seen in mid-elevation coniferous forest in the Sierra Nevada, for example at about 6000 feet near Stanford Sierra Camp on Fallen Leaf Lake, a historic Stanford place where several original faculty members owned cabins. White fir’s common name refers to the pale cast of its needles, which curve upward, especially on higher branches. The epithet concolor, “of one color,” likewise points to foliage that appears relatively uniform above and below. The mountain lions that sometimes visit Jasper Ridge and campus are Puma concolor – with a uniformly colored, unspotted coat.

A thousand or so white firs were produced in the Stanford nursery in 1889, from seed collected in Colorado, and a number of young trees were reported along Pine Avenue and elsewhere on campus in 1913. The last known campus tree stood at 50 Searsville Road.