Bigcone Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga macrocarpa
Bigcone Douglas-fir is a drought-hardy southern California endemic with the largest cones of any Douglas-fir, clinging to dry chaparral mountainsides. A tough, fire-resistant evergreen for hot, dry slopes. Like Douglas fir, young shoot tips flavor cooked foods, the needles brew into a vitamin C-rich tea, and the inner bark has served as a famine-food flour.
- Family
- Pinaceae
- Type
- tree
- Lifespan
- perennial
- Height
- 75–75 ft
- Spacing
- 20–40 ft apart
- Light
- part shade
- Soil moisture
- moist, wet
- Soil pH
- acidic, neutral
- Bloom
- March, April
- Bloom colors
- yellow
- Wildlife value
- songbirds, mammals, larval host
- Caterpillar hosts
- ~76 butterfly & moth species
- Landscape uses
- specimen
- Native states
- CA