User:Treefender

A Treefender in unceded Sinixt təmxʷulaʔxʷ

The grand fir is true to its name by standing up to 80 meters tall, a grand tree indeed. The Grand Fir's bark is grey and has sap blisters when young. Older bark has little grooves. The needles are flat and have a blunt tip which, when crushed, smell amazing - some people say like Christmas. This tree is very shade tolerant, but like every tree each one is unique and will grow differently in every habitat. It can grow up to at least 2 feet a year, though intense heat can stunt it. Grand Fir likes the lower elevation habitat of the Cascade, Monashee, Selkirk, and Purcell mountains. It doesn’t seem to like the cold and cannot often be found north of the southern interior valleys, although rare specimens can sometimes be found on northern slopes and higher elevations. Grand Fir typically would have been found in drier parts of the Inland Temperate Rainforest, and often grew after fire. It was often found ith spruce, cedar, fir, and hemlock or a mix of them all. Grand firs have green-yellow cones that sit upright on the branches. They explode when ripe and seeds fly everywhere. The seeds are carried by the wind to their new homes. Grand fir can live for at least 300 years. They are often infected with paint fungus. The sappy resin that comes from the blisters in the bark has been used as toothpaste, a glue, and to prevent infection to minor cuts and bites. The tree was known for healing various sicknesses and therefore many native peoples in the Interior called it the ‘medicine tree’. The sap was made into a tea which was taken to cure tuberculosis and coughing. The nice smell of the tree was used as a bed lining and used in sweathouses.

The Western Larch is a tall deciduous conifer that only grows in the southeastern corner of British Columbia. It is unique among conifers in that it is the only one (besides Alpine Larch in the alpine or the tamarack in Northern BC) to lose its needles in winter. Before it loses its needles, it turns a vibrant yellowy-orange. Throughout the West Kootenay it is common to see the mountains burnished with golden larch-a truly glorious sight. The needles are not only unique in the way they fall but in the way they grow. They grow out of a centimeter-long stump on the branch with about 20 different needles growing out of it. They also are amazing with their extremely lime green new growth each spring. When the needles fall they are an important source of fertilizer for the tree itself and surrounding trees. The Western Larch has bark similar to that of the Douglas-Fir, or more similarly the Ponderosa Pine. The bark of the Western Larch is from deep red to dark grey. They are even more fire-resistant than the Douglas-Fir, the most fire-resistant in BC. They easily self prune their lower branches and are very hard trees to climb! A unique thing about larch is their diversity to grow in so many different places. They grow in the dry Okanagan and East Kootenay, all the way to some of the wettest parts of the Inland Temperate Rainforest. The Western Larch grows extremely fast and when it gets to the overstory it doesn't stop there. It will often grow 20 feet taller than the undergrowth (commonly cedar and hemlock) and then slow down a bit. It does not tolerate any shade. It is one of the most shade intolerant trees in the Pacific Northwest. It grows well after fire because then it can get the sun. The larches wood is one of the strongest in the world. The wood is one of the best for firewood and burns hot and slowly leaving glowing coals. Larch trees form a taproot that goes straight down. You can dig around a larch tree and not find any roots for a ways down. It is very rare to find an uprooted larch tree. It is common to find old larch trees just suddenly in the forest. They are huge component trees in forests such as the Argenta Face forest, Salmo area, near the Mercer pulp mill, Trail area, Grassy Mountain near Castlegar, and the Little Slocan Valley. With the pollution from the Teck Cominco, the larch has been very necessary. Teck was blowing out sulfur dioxide which is the main reason for the death of all the hemlock and cedar in the Columbia River Valley from Castlegar far down into the States. Hemlock and cedar are very sensitive to sulfur dioxide and it quickly kills them, and after logging almost no trees came back. The larch to is sensitive but not as much. The larch over time replaced the forgotten cedars and hemlocks. Trail was not always as dry as it is now. A few hemlocks and cedar managed to come back and one hemlock is growing about a kilometer from Teck. The larch is very often used in watershed protection. It is not uncommon to find a larch with a burnt top because they grow so tall they often get struck by lightning. With the larch's scruffy bark, they often have a variety of lichens and mosses growing on them. The scruffy bark causes a good hold for the spores to stick to. Squirrels eat the seeds occasionally. The pitch can be eaten like gum. The dried pitch can be pounded into baking powder. The pitch has a sugar-arabinogalactan which is used in food. Recent research shows this sugar can be extracted from old stumps. A lot of old-growth larch was located near Libby, Montana, and logged. Years later they are coming in and extracting this sugar. You can also make syrup from Western Larch sap. It is almost if not equal to Maple Syrup. We are going to try to make some larch syrup for an experiment this year! It is also used for baking powder.

The Douglas-Fir is a truly amazing, tall tree. It can grow up to 300 feet. It is not a true fir, so there is a hyphen in between the two words Douglas-fir. The needles are arranged in the appearance of a bow tie, though sometimes circular like spruce. They are often circularly arranged if they are in a harsher climate or do not get as much sun. The needles are blunt but not sharp. Its cones have three-pronged bracts for each scale. The bark is usually a deep brown, and older trees are often deeply grooved. The bark can grow 32 inches thick. The asbestos-like bark is used to protect the tree from fire and insects. As long as there are no branches close to the ground, the tree is usually safe. It is common in an old growth forest to find many young western hemlocks growing out of the base of an old Douglas-Fir tree. This is called a Douglas-Fir minion. The hemlocks prefer growing out of humus (dead bark, wood) and congregate there. Bears often will mark their territory line on a Douglas Fir and love to eat the sweet, succulent inner bark. There are thought to be 3 main types of Douglas-Fir: Coastal, Interior, and Rocky Mountain. In the Sinixt təmxʷulaʔxʷ (West Kootenay Region), the type you will find is the Interior Douglas-Fir. There is almost no difference between them except the Coastal grows tall on the Coast, the Interior grows in wet and dry, and the Rocky Mountain is short and shrubby in dry warm areas. Douglas-fir grows very quickly. It is often used in old fields for habitat restoration. Douglas-Fir has become more common in the past 50 years throughout its range because selective forestry. Its strong wood is preferred by loggers. The cones are green when young and turn brown as they turn older Douglas-fir is often one of the first tree species to grow after a fire, and they often survive through very hot fires because of their thick bark. The seeds are feasted on by many animals and it is common to see a squirrel throwing them out of trees. If you live in a Douglas-Fir forest it is a common occurrence to wake up to the banging of squirrels throwing cones on the roof. Indigenous People used the wood for fires, and the Sinixt used young saplings for strengthening fishing nets.