Abies nebrodensis - Sicilian fir description

Scientific name: Abies nebrodensis (Lojac.) Mattei  1908

Synonyms: Abies alba subsp. nebrodensis (Mattei) Nitz., Abies alba var. nebrodensis (Lojac.) Svoboda, Abies pectinata Guss., Abies pectinata var. nebrodensis Lojac.

Common names: Sicilian fir, Nebrodi fir, Abete dei Nèbrodi (Italian)

Description

Tree to 15 m tall, with trunk to 0.6 m in diameter. Bark light gray, becoming scaly with age and ultimately slightly furrowed at the base. Branchlets without hairs, slightly grooved between the leaf bases. Buds 4-5(-9) mm long, not prominently resinous. Needles stiff, arranged straight out to the sides and above the twigs but with a gap beneath them, 8-15(-20) mm long, bright, shiny green above, the tip blunt to prickly. Individual needles plump in cross section and with a small resin canal on either side near the edge, just inside the lower epidermis, without or with a few broken lines of stomates near the tip above and with 6-11 rows of stomates in each broad stomatal band beneath. Pollen cones 15-20 mm long, purple. Seed cones cylindrical, 7-12(-20) cm long, 3-4(-5) cm across, green when young, maturing yellowish brown. Bracts about as long as the minutely hairy seed scales, sticking out between them, and bent down over them. Persistent cone axis narrowly conical. Seed body (6-)8-10(-12) mm long, the wing a little longer.

Mountains of northern Sicily and perhaps the toe of Italy. Once forming pure forests or mixed with black pine (Pinus nigra) and other trees and shrubs at its lower limit; 1,400-1,600(-2,000) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Critically Endangered

Varieties:

Abies nebrodensis ’French Hybrid‘    
Abies nebrodensis ’Sicilian Gold’

Attribution from: Conifers Garden