O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree / How lovely are thy branches
Your boughs so green in summertime / Stay bravely green in wintertime
O tannenbaum, o Christmas tree / How lovely are thy branches
“Tannenbaum” derives from the German “Tanne,” meaning “fir,” and “Baum,” meaning “tree.” The two-hundred-year-old lyrics from this schoolteacher’s wintertime melody refer not to the Christmas season, but specifically to the character of the trees we host briefly within our homes: the coniferous evergreen, which—like a good Christian’s faith—is constant throughout the year.
Exemplary of the fir family is the Douglas-fir. Since 1920, a vast majority of American and European Christmas trees have been Douglas-firs. These are largely grown on plantations, generally along highways or behind farms. While some families prefer the bushy Noble fir or the mighty Grand fir, which grow to be naturally conical, it is the Douglas-fir that lends itself to sculpting. Husbands and fathers who yearn to “trim the tree” seek the hearty Douglas-fir.
Friends of this fir may call him Douglas, but all others may call him Pseudotsuga menziesii. Those of the Pseudotsuga genus descend from the Pinaceae family—pines—which are found throughout the arboreal zones of the northern hemisphere, ranging from Mexico to Canada, from Scotland to Japan, from North Africa to Albania, and from Kazakhstan to Cambodia. — The Pseudotsuga clan, unlike the other pines, has preferred inbreeding over exploration.
Douglas-firs are native to northwestern North America, and for this reason they’ll occasionally be called the “Columbian pine,” though anyone who does call it that is dumb. Oregon State goes even further and claims aesthetic ownership over the Douglas-fir: they’ve slapped it on their flag and called it the “Oregon pine,” which it is not. It is the Douglas-fir, and it comes in two shades: coastal tall-boys and inland deep-rooters.
Pseudotsuga menziesii (var. menziesii) grows along the coast of British Columbia and southward to central California, where it comprises much of the Sierra Nevada foliage. Through Washington and Oregon, its breadth is pervasive from the Pacific coast through to the Cascades—the lush, archetypal tree of the region. The mild, moist climate of the Pacific Northwest has encouraged the coastal Douglas-fir to grow tall and dense, regardless of the terrain’s design. Such fertile ground enables it to mature faster and larger than its contemporary…
The inland Douglas-fir (var. glauca) is found throughout the Rocky Mountains, originating on the eastern side of the Cascades and spread southward to the Mexican border. Of course, with higher altitudes and warmer climates, its roots grow deeper and its breadth grows thin as you travel south along the Rockies. This, however, is only proof of the Douglas-fir’s resilience: the same tree, native to the temperate rainforests of British Columbia, can grow among the sagebrush of the semi-arid steppe of the Sonora and Trans-Pecos regions.
The Douglas-fir relegates itself primarily to one corner of the United States, and yet it is the most important tree on the western half of the continent. As with Christmas tree farms, the Douglas-fir is raised in orderly plantations and harvested as timber. This softwood is used for flooring and construction, due to its strength and durability, in addition to being the go-to choice for much of America’s fine woodworking and joinery.
During the Douglas-fir’s long history upon the Pacific coast—even before the logging industry came to the area—the occasional tree would perform a nosedive into the briny blue, and the southerly currents would carry that puppy across the ocean, to all points unknown. Sometimes these thicc Douglas-fir rebels would find their way to the Hawaiian Islands, and the natives who’d happen upon them would fashion waʻa kaulua (double-hulled canoes) from this sturdy, foreign driftwood.
The Douglas-fir stands above much of its arboreal competition as a resilient, beautiful, and bountiful tree — but, I must confess, the Douglas-fir is a lie. It is an imposter who excels so greatly in the realm of deception that its true character has laid dormant beneath the public arena for over a century…
The Douglas-fir is neither fir nor Douglas.
Let me explain.
THE FIRST LIE: The Douglas-fir belongs to the genus Pseudotsuga, whereas the fir breed belongs to the genus Abies. Ergo, it cannot be called “a Douglas fir.” The botanists’ fix for this was to rename it “the Douglas-fir,” hyphenated. (Semantics.)
The Abies fir clan consists of roughly fifty species in the Pinaceae family—all evergreen conifers, of course—compared to the six or seven species of the Pseudotsuga fake-fir clan. The primary differences between firs and fake-firs are in the coat: firs have flat, waxy needle-like leaves (ranging from deep green to silvery bluish-grey) that cluster on their twiggy branches via what’s essentially a sap suction cup. Fake-firs, on the other hand, have somewhat of the same needle-like leaves, only with less color variance and a singly-sprouted alignment around the branch, rather than in clusters.
The classification of fake-firs has troubled botanists since their discovery. The Douglas-fir spent seventy years being cycled through genuses like they were foster homes, formerly belonging to the clans Pinus, Picea, Abies, Tsuga, and Sequoia. In 1867 they were ultimately classified in their own genus, Pseudotsuga, which means “false hemlock.” The hemlock (genus: tsuga) has flat, spirally-born, waxy green needles, with easily identifiable oblong-cylindric cones. While the Douglas-fir is rather similar to the hemlock, in this respect, it was clear that the Douglas-fir would be an outsider in any genus but its own.
THE SECOND LIE: The Douglas-fir takes its name from David Douglas, a Scottish botanist who traveled the world to look at cool plants and take saplings home to the fancy gardens of England’s upper class. Born in 1799, David Douglas first aspired to become a gardener. He apprenticed under William Beattie, the head gardener of Scone Palace: a Gothic manse built of red sandstone in the 12th century, tucked beneath the glowering edge of the Scottish highlands.
Douglas worked the arboretum at Scone Palace for seven years, researching the science and mathematics behind plants and plant culture. A Glaswegian professor took note of Dougie’s studious obsession and recommended him to the Royal Horticultural Society of London. Through this association, Douglas was awarded an expedition to the eastern coast of North America, in 1823, to identify and report on plants yet unclassified.
He ventured on a second expedition in 1824, to the Pacific Northwest, where he identified the Pseudotsuga menziesii and made record of it; he called it “the Douglas fir tree,” and he brought home a dozen saplings — some for London, and some for the arboretum at Scone Palace. But Pseudotsuga menziesii was not his tree to name, for—like the One Ring of power—it already had a father, and it answers to no other master…
This tree’s special designation derives from Archibald Menzies, an elder Scottish naturalist who rivaled David Douglas in the field. Menzies had first discovered this “fir tree” on Vancouver Island, in 1791 — well before Douglas was born.
Archibald Menzies, interestingly enough, crawled out of his mother’s perforated vagina barely twenty miles from where David Douglas would do the same (with own his mother) 45 years later. Menzies, like his future frenemy, originally dreamed of becoming a gardener. His older brother landed him a job at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, where he soon caught the eye of a botanical professor who encouraged him to pursue a career in medicine.
Young Archie decided “Doctor Menzies” had a better ring to it than “Menzies the Gardener,” and he apprenticed under a surgeon long enough to become one. He then joined the Royal Navy as an assistant to the doctor aboard the HMS Nonsuch. (Boats had dope names back then.) In 1786, he voyaged around Cape Horn to the northern Pacific, in pursuit of furs. The ship made several rounds between the western coast of America, eastern China, and the Hawaiian Islands between them.
While his duties were still those of a surgeon, Menzies resigned to his primal urges, as he was compelled to collect seeds and saplings of the many “cool plants” he noticed during this pan-Pacific trek. After returning to England, in 1790, Menzies was honored with a membership in the Linnean Society of London. (One of many organizations formed during the Enlightenment, the Linnean Society dedicated itself to the study of natural history and taxonomy. Their obsession with academic publication was a wellspring of knowledge for future generations — an example being their unprecedented presentation of the Theory of Evolution.)
Thanks to this new affiliation, Menzies was elected to accompany Captain George Vancouver as a naturalist aboard the HMS Discovery, on a circumnavigational tour-de-force. Five years into the voyage, Captain Vancouver and his crew were exploring the coast of Chile when the nation’s viceroy invited them to dinner. Records say it was scrumptious, but the real treat was dessert: roasted seeds from the Chile Pine tree.
Menzies snuck into the kitchen and pocketed a few unoffended Chile Pine seeds. Once back at sea, he potted the seeds and successfully grew five little Chile Pine trees. The HMS Discovery continued north, along the western coast of America, where Captain Vancouver would lend his name to an island; upon that island, Menzies would then identify and entitle the immaculate Pseudotsuga menziesii.
Returning to England once again, Menzies delivered his five healthy Chile Pine saplings to the Royal Gardens of London. Anglo-Saxony had never before seen such a plant, and the Chile Pine—or, ‘Monkey Puzzle tree,’ as those wacky Brits liked to call it—became a phenomenon among the formal gardens of nineteenth century Europe.
Britain’s botanical obsession with the Chile Pine meant that Menzies’ namesake fir tree went largely unacknowledged, and his record of it laid dormant in a journal at the Linnean archives. He returned to the seas, perused the West Indies, and ultimately retired from the Royal Navy—around the same time that David Douglas was taking his first breath.
Archibald Menzies obtained his doctorate diploma and served as the surgeon of London’s Notting Hill for four decades. In 1842, the president of the Linnean Society died and Menzies ascended the throne in his stead.
Old Archie ruled mightily for all of thirty-six days before he, too, died.
Following his ‘discovery’ of the Douglas-fir, in the spring of 1826, David Douglas found a momentary obsession in summiting a mountain. “This isn’t any old mountain,” he said to his crew, “This is Mount Brown. It hosts the best view in all of North America.”
Of course, Douglas had never been this far inland before, so he had no idea what he was talking about. His expeditionary team was crossing the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains for the first time, using the once-charted Athabasca Pass to circumvent the steepled range. It was a veteran explorer’s maneuver, but unfortunately for the crew they were led by a wide-eyed rookie. Thus, despite already being inside the Athabasca Pass, David Douglas wanted to go up and over the legendary Mount Brown.
And Mount Brown truly was the stuff of legends. An unreliable “Lieutenant Simpson” had charted the Athabasca Pass a few years prior, and he recorded the height of the throughway at 11,000 feet. That would be impressive, for a THROUGHWAY, considering that much of the Alps, Rockies, and Tetons average-out at 11,000 feet. Imagine this particular magnificent peak being ground-level and flanked by even-larger peaks; if this were the case, you’d be crossing through an American range rivaling the Himalayas.
But they didn’t know any better back then. Douglas only had this one map to make estimates with, and every expeditionary at the time had trusted this bumpus “Lt. Simpson” because they mistook his charts for those of Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Simpson, a capable and respected man.
Nevertheless, Athabasca Pass was 5,700 feet high, and David Douglas thought it was twice that. In the aftermath of his fabled hike, he had written in his journal, “I set out with the view of ascending what seemed to be the highest peak on the north. Its height does not seem to be less than 16,000 or 17,000 feet above the level of the sea. After passing over the lower ridge I came to about 1,200 feet of, by far, the most difficult and fatiguing walking I have ever experienced, and the utmost care was required to tread over the crust of the snow…”
A perilous ascension it may have been, but it was no 17,000’ adventure; in reality, it was a 3,500’ hike, and if grossly-inflated estimates were indicative of his journey then that “1,200 feet of, by far, the most difficult and fatiguing walking I have ever experienced” was more likely in the realm of 250 feet, or two-thirds the length of a football field. Oh, boy.
When the Canadians were erecting their transcontinental railroad across the British Columbia/Alberta border, they forged two paths through the Great Divide: one through the Athabasca Pass, and another, 151 miles to the southeast, to circumvent Mount Assiniboine. With the latter being the first to link eastward, the mountaineers of Europe and New England flocked to Alberta to climb Mt. Assiniboine, “the Matterhorn of the Rockies.”
This jaw-dropping pyramidal peak was summited soon after, and it was recorded with an altitude of 11,870 feet. Being the highest peak in the southern lengths of the Canadian Rockies, the ambitious climbers of the east flocked deeper into the tundra, to conquer the other mounts of the Great North.
Some went to the fabled Mounts of Hooker and Brown — the two peaks whose cradle formed the Athabasca Pass. Every map of this area, printed after the confirmatory voyage of David Douglas, stated that Hooker and Brown each met heights between 15,000 and 17,000 feet. Potential climbers were eager to feast on these slopes, and they descended upon the area of Athabasca.
Across multiple seasons of difficult hiking and exploration, these climbers inevitably resigned from their pursuits; they could not find any noteworthy peaks, in that area, with heights upwards of 15,000 feet. I like to imagine this one guy—frozen beard and woolen sweater, with a length of rope coiled around his shoulder—was recovering from altitude sickness when a moment of clarity brought him to realize that the fabled Mounts of Hooker and Brown were, unfortunately, only 10,780 and 9,150 feet high, respectively — child’s play in the world of mountaineering.
If there was an upside to the disappointments of Hooker and Brown, it's that the Athabasca area was finally charted correctly. Later maps were fleshed-out in immaculate detail.
While David Douglas went down in mountaineering history as one of the most legendary dupes, he established himself as a trendsetting pioneer for the same mistake: David Douglas, America’s first recreational mountaineer.
Douglas’ three-year expedition through the Pacific Northwest ended in October of 1827. His return to England brought the Douglas-fir to gardens and parks across Europe. In his three years away, he also acquired the seeds of the Sugar Pine, Western White Pine, Lodgepole Pine, Monterey Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Noble Fir, Grand Fir, and Sitka Spruce. These trees were cultivated and transplanted across the British Isles, forever changing [for better or for worse] the British landscape.
He introduced England to some 240 species of plants, all once-uniquely native to North America. As a result, the British timber industry resurged, and European shipbuilding boomed—so much so that, by the dawn of the second industrial revolution, most of Europe was well-equipped for the hasty conquering of Africa. In later correspondence with the man who apprenticed him, Douglas later wrote “you will begin to think I manufacture pines at my pleasure.”
After the raging success of Douglas’ 1824 expedition, the Royal Horticultural Society shipped him off to the Pacific Northwest again for what they hoped would be an even-better botanical round-up. He left England in October of 1829, toured the Columbia River for a year, camped in San Francisco through the winter of 1831, visited Hawaii in August of 1832, returned to the Columbia River that autumn, and—recalling the tropical serenity of the pineapple kingdom—made the pilgrimage back to Hawaii in late 1833.
Douglas moored outside the Sandwich Isles on the second day of 1834. His crew disembarked to the main island, Hawai’i, and made their way inland, to Mauna Loa.
Mauna Loa is the largest volcano in the world, encompassing an area of over two-thousand square miles and contributing to more than half of the surface area of the island. Mauna Loa rises over 30,085 feet from the seafloor to its summit (which—fun fact—eclipses the total elevation of Mount Everest by a thousand feet). Furthermore, being a product of non-stop tectonic growth, nearly half of the mountain comprising Mauna Loa is buried under five miles of Earth's crust. Final calculations assert that Mauna Loa, from its explosive birth to today, has grown to over 56,000 feet high. (For reference, commercial airliners fly at altitudes between 28,000 and 35,000 feet.)
David Douglas and his crew may not have known of Mauna Loa’s true significance back in 1834, but Mauna Loa (“Long Mountain”) made itself predominant in their eyes by towering over the horizon of the vast Pacific Ocean. For thousands of miles, in every direction, nothing stands as formidably as Mauna Loa.
Naturally, Douglas—a man easily bewitched by mighty summits—wanted to be the first European to stand upon it. Little did he know that—just as with his precious fir tree—Archibald Menzies had gotten there first.
In 1794, when the HMS Discovery was wintering off the shores of Hawaii, Menzies and three others hiked to the top of Mauna Loa. Using a portable barometer, Menzies recorded the altitude as 13,564 feet; today, the altitude is known as 13,679’ — a fucking bullseye compared to the altitude measurements David Douglas put out, and that’s with over two hundred years’ worth of tectonic shift to account for.
Yes, David Douglas was a peculiar, wide-eyed, and frequently misfortunate man—botanical legacy notwithstanding. After summiting Mauna Loa (and believing himself to be the first to do so) he sought to climb its sister volcano, Mauna Kea — the second of five historic volcanoes to comprise the island of Hawaii.
At the age of 35, David Douglas was already growing weak in the eyes. He misjudged his footing and fell into a tribesman’s pit trap, which was presently occupied by a wild boar. (This encounter ended as well as you would have expected it to.)
Douglas was buried in an unmarked common grave. The pit that sealed his fate was renamed “the Doctor’s Pit,” and a monument was erected beside it. Today, visitors will find the area adorned with small Douglas-fir trees.
And while the sentiment is appreciated, I feel inclined to reiterate that the Douglas-fir is not a fir (re: Pseudotsuga) and neither is it a prize of Douglas (re: menziesii). However, as if in acknowledgement of this infamous botanical misunderstanding, a species of horned toad has been named for him: Phrynosoma douglasii.
Yet, as marvelous as it is to honor one of history's dopest botanists, there’s only one slight, ironic, little problem: the douglasii horned toad is not a horned toad.
It's a pygmy lizard.
