Abies ernestii Seeds | Ernest’s Fir
LATIN NAME: Abies ernestii
COMMON NAME: Ernest’s Fir
Plant Profile
Abies ernestii is a fir of the Sichuan and Yunnan mountains, growing between about 2,500 and 3,800 metres in mixed forest with spruce and birch. It reaches thirty metres with a straight trunk and a narrow crown that stays pointed into old age. The bark is smooth and grey on young trees and breaks into plates on old ones, and the branches come out in regular whorls.
The needles are flat, dark green above with two white bands of stomata beneath, and they are arranged in two ranks that look combed. The cones are the distinguishing feature: upright, barrel-shaped, eight to twelve centimetres long, purple-blue when young and brown when ripe, and they break up on the tree rather than falling whole.
Science & Biotechnology
The firs are separated from the spruces by the cone and by the leaf scar. Abies cones stand up on the branch, and the scales fall away leaving a bare spike; Picea cones hang down and drop whole. The needle scar on an Abies twig is a flat, round mark, while on a spruce it is a raised peg. These are the characters to use in winter, when nothing else is available.
The species belongs to a group of Chinese firs that were split from Abies recurvata and are still argued over. Populations in the Yunnan mountains differ in cone size and in needle length, and some authors treat them as separate varieties. The tree is a component of the subalpine forest that protects the headwaters of the Yangtze, and logging in the twentieth century removed much of the old growth.
Uses & Benefits
The timber is light, straight-grained and resonant, and it is used for construction, for boxes and for the soundboards of instruments. In Yunnan it is cut for house building and for roof shingles, and the resin is collected in small quantities for caulking.
The tree is also planted for shelter and for watershed protection, and it appears in European collections as a rare Chinese fir for a large garden. The young shoots are used in local medicine, and the essential oil of the needles has been studied for antifungal activity, though none of this is a commercial trade.
Growing from Seed
Ernest’s fir seed is short-lived and wants a cold, damp winter to wake it. Sow in autumn in a free-draining mix and leave the pot outdoors through winter, or stratify at 4 degrees for eight weeks. Germination is usually in April, and the seedlings are slow, reaching twenty centimetres in their second year.
The tree wants deep, cool, slightly acid soil and shelter from wind, and it dislikes both drought and waterlogging. Plant it in spring while it is small, mulch with leaf mould, and keep grass away from the base for the first three years. It is hardy to about minus twenty, but it needs humidity, which makes it a difficult tree in dry inland gardens.
Our Take
A mountain fir for a cool, wet garden with space, grown for the blue young cones and the straight grey trunk rather than for speed.
Related Reading
Readers interested in Ernest’s Fir frequently explore these as well: