Identification: Trees and Saplings with Short Needle Leaves, but Various Differences and Similarities - PART 1

Hello Everyone,

I consulted the BC Tree Book to try to identify these trees/saplings, but found it hard to match the illustrations in the guide to the actual plants and the photos of them that I took. Each tree/sapling has short needle-like leaves, but also some differences. Do you know what trees these are? Some possibilities might be hemlock, fir or spruce.

Location : Pacific Ranges
Elevation : 1000 m ~ 1200 m
Season : Late July

Plants 1 & 2 both have dense tufts of leaves, leaves on their centre stems at the top of the plant. But while Plant 1 has very neat pairs of branches sticking out at various places along the centre stem, Plant 2's branches seem a bit less neatly paired. Are they different species?

Plant 1



Plant 2



Compared to Plants 1 & 2, Plant 3 seems to have a much more irregular branch structure, no leaves on the centre stems even at the top, and tufts that are less dense and more irregular looking. I'm assuming this is a different species?

Plant 3



Plant 4 has similarities to Plants 1 & 2, but the branching doesn't seem to be the neat pairs I saw in Plant 1. Could Plant 4 be the same species as Plant 2, but a different species from Plant 1?

Plant 4



Plant 5 does have neat looking pairs of branches, and leaves on the centre stem at the top. But the tufts of leaves seem more flat and not as round compared to Plant 1. Are Plants 5 & 1 the same, or different species?

Plant 5



Continued in PART 2 ...

 

Plants 1, 2, 4, 5 - Pacific Silver Fir Abies amabilis.
Plant 3 - Mountain Hemlock Tsuga mertensiana.

 

Small, suppressed Pacific silver firs within the canopy of a mature forest can actually be very old - I helped measure and record a bunch of these one year during a gap study in the southern WA Cascades, wherein an artificial opening was made and it was observed how the understory reacted to the change in exposure.

 

Yep - plant #4 (pic #7) shows nearly 20 years growth just in what's visible in the photo, and that's a plant speeding up with increased light; the base out of view could easily be as much or more again. Some man-tall 'saplings' can be over 150 years old from what I've read. Ron - any figures, please? Would be interesting to see details!