Abies pindrow

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Pindrow Fir

Pindrow Fir at New York Botanical Garden

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pinophyta
Class:	Pinopsida
Order:	Pinales
Family:	Pinaceae
Genus:	Abies
Species:	A. pindrow

Binomial name

Abies pindrow
(Royle ex D.Don) Royle

The Pindrow Fir or West Himalayan Fir (Abies pindrow) is a fir native to the western Himalaya and adjacent mountains, from northeast Afghanistan east through northern India to central Nepal. It grows at altitudes of 2,400-3,700 m in forests together with Deodar Cedar, Blue Pine and Morinda Spruce, typically occupying cooler, moister north-facing slopes.

It is a large evergreen tree growing to 40-60 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 2-2.5 m. It has a conical crown with level branches.

The shoots are greyish-pink to buff-brown, smooth and glabrous (hairless). The leaves are needle-like, among the longest of any fir, 4-9 cm long, flattened in cross-section, glossy dark green above, with two whitish stomatal bands on the underside; they are arranged spirally on the shoots, but twisted at the base to lie in a flat plane either side of the shoot. The cones are broad cylindric-conic, 7-14 cm long and 3-4 cm broad, dark purple when young, disintegrating when mature to release the seeds 5-7 months after pollination.

The closely related Gamble's Fir (Abies gamblei, syn. A. pindrow var. brevifolia, A. pindrow subsp. gamblei) occurs in the same area but on somewhat drier sites; it differs in shorter leaves 2-4 cm long with less obvious stomatal bands and arranged more radially round the shoot. The cones are very similar.

Pindrow Fir is used to a small extent for timber and production in its native range. It is occasionally grown as an ornamental tree in large gardens in western Europe, but demands high humidity and rainfall to grow well. The name pindrow derives from the tree's name in Nepalese.