Balsam fir
Description
Leaves
Form
- Tip rounded or notched
- Needles arranged in 2 ranks, shorter on the upper side of the twig
- Resin ducts small, remote from the surface
- Strong odour when crushed
Length
- 15–25 mm
Colour
- Upper surface shiny dark green, often a few white dots toward the tip
- Lower surface with 10–12 lines of white dots
Buds
Form
- Broadly ovoid
- Resinous
Length
- 5 mm
Twigs
Form
- Smooth, hairy
Colour
- Greenish-grey
Seed cones (mature)
Form
- Erect, barrel-shaped
- Resinous
Length
- 4–10 cm
Colour
- Greyish-brown
Structure
- Bracts with rounded shoulders and a needle-shaped tip, sometimes longer than the scales
Timing
- Cones break up from early September
- Bare cone axis retained on tree for several years
- Seeds abundant
Seeds
Form
- Resinous
- Firmly attached to seed coat
Length
- Seed 3–6 mm
- Seed wing 10–15 mm
Colour
- Purple to brown
Bark
Form
- Smooth with raised resin blisters when young
- With age, breaking into irregular scales
Colour
- Greyish when young, becoming brownish with age
Wood
Texture
- Light, soft, weak, somewhat brittle
- Odourless
Colour
- White
Morphology
- Little contrast between earlywood and latewood
- Little contrast between heartwood and sapwood
Uses
- Wood pulp, lumber, Christmas trees
Size
Height
- To 25 m
Diameter
- To 70 cm
Maximum age
- 150 years
Tree form
Open-grown
Crown
- Lower branches remain alive
- Green foliage extends to the ground
Forest-grown
Trunk
- Slightly tapered below the crown
- Dead branches persist for several years
Crown
- Crown regular
- Gradually tapers to a spire-like top
Root system
- Shallow
Habitat
Site
- Variety of soils and climates
Associated species
- Grows in pure stands or mixed with trembling aspen, white birch, white spruce, black spruce, red spruce, and eastern hemlock
Range
Northern forests of central and eastern Canada
Insects and diseases
Insects
- Protoboarmia porcelaria (Guenee)
- Gray spruce looper
- Hemlock looper
- Orange spruce needleminer
- Pale winged grey
- Pine measuringworm moth
- Redlined conifer caterpillar
- Saddleback looper
- Small pine looper
- Striped ambrosia beetle
- Yellowlined forest looper
- Balsam fir sawfly
- Eastern blackheaded budworm
- Gypsy moth
- Spruce budworm
- Spruce coneworm
- Feralia comstocki Grote
- Balsam gall midge
- Balsam shootboring sawfly
- Balsam twig aphid
- Balsam woolly adelgid
- Bark beetle
- Fir coneworm
- Pales weevil
- Pero moth
- Pine needle scale
- Pine spittlebug
- Purplestriped shootworm
- Spruce climbing cutworm
- Whitemarked tussock moth
- White slaut
- Whitespotted sawyer
- Whitetriangle leafroller
Diseases
- Balsam fir tip blight
- Brown rot
- Fir-fireweed rust
- Fir-oak-fern rust (Hyalopsora aspidiotus)
- Needle cast
- Pinicola brown crumbly rot
- Pitted sap rot
- Red ring rot
- Ribes-willow rust
- Schweinitzii Butt Rot
- Sericeomollis brown cubical butt
- Stringy Butt Rot
- White stringy rot
- Armillaria ostoyae root disease
- Armillaria root rot
- Brown cubical sap rot
- Fir-willow rust
- Hemlock-willow rust
- Red heart rot
- Yellow witches' broom of balsam fir
- Fir needle cast (Lophodermium lacerum)
- Snow blight
- Spruce needle cast (Lophodermium piceae)
Insects and diseases that are found most frequently and/or that cause the most damage in our Canadian forests.
Distribution map

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