Red Needles on Doug Fir

[cloudcap]

Greetings!

I'm a bit of a novice tree farmer with a 10 acre lot on the east side of the central Washington Cascades (near Cle Elum, for you Washingtonians; behind Suncadia & above Domerie Flats for those of you that really know the area).  We plant a mix of Doug Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Lodgepole Pine, and White Pine and are in our fourth season of ownership.

We were wandering around the property over the weekend and saw some unusual (to us) new growth on several of the Doug Fir -- bright red needles.  All of the other new growth I've seen has been green, but this is the first time we've seen red.  Is this typical for Doug Fir?  The red needles were present on a bunch of trees and they don't seem distressed, so I'm inclined to think this is normal growth rather than something sinister.  Can anyone tell me what's going on here?

Thanks for your help.

Ron

[beenthere]

Are they new cones that are developing?

And welcome to the Forestry Forum.

[woodtroll]

They look like new candles of growth, but I have never noticed them being red.

[RynSmith]

Pretty sure you're looking at the male flowers there.   :P

[Jeff]

If you go to this link on ForestryImages.org  You will see more examples. Its the flower that becomes the cone

[RynSmith]

That was my first thought too, Jeff, but I went on good ol' google and found that the pollen flowers are red and the cone flowers are greenish.  I think you can actually see some hanging downwards in the second picture.

[beenthere]

Couple of quotes I found googling.

Male flowers of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) are bright red, female flowers are green and have prominent bracts. Mature seed cones are approximately 3 to 4 inches long, reddish brown in color, and have pitchfork-shaped bracts.

Flowers/Inflorescence: The male and female cones are separate, often found on the same twig. Male cones are numerous, very small, and orange-red in color. Female cones, which mature in one growing season, appear at first as purplish or red-green clusters of three-pronged leafy bracts. When mature, the cones are 2 - 4 inches long and brown in color. Woody cone scales are stiff with protruding three-pronged leaf-like bracts that wrap back over the next lower cone scale, these have the appearance of the back legs and tail of a mouse.

Amazing what we can learn on the FF 8)

[RynSmith]

Weird, BT, because the ones in the picture don't look "very small."  I'm starting to think I'm wrong and that those are females, especially when your quote says they start out purplish... 
???

[Jeff]

Here is a better link showing both male and female on forestry images.

http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1467046

[RynSmith]

And there you have it 

[cloudcap]

Female cones -- works for me!  Most of my recollections of cones are from a later developmental stage where they're green and hard, so a soft red flower-like growth just didn't seem to fit the bill.  I'll try and remember to take some photos during the next few weeks to capture the transition into the more traditional cone-like appearance.

Thanks for your help with this.

Regards

Ron

[cloudcap]

I was back up at the tree farm over the weekend and took a few more photos of the mysterious "red needles".  They're now more brown in color and have taken on a traditional cone shape, but they're still soft (i.e., not hard like a typical green cone).  Still, it is now pretty obvious that they're cones.

Thanks again for the help.

Ron

[Jeff]

Good job on the photos. 

[mdvaden]

Maybe this thread is a good reminder why my first landscape related college class was one of my favorites.

Evergreen Tree ID

It was a winter class - and still is.

I always thought the evergreens were fun ones to identify: needle persistence, cone size and shape, presence or absense of bloom under needles, pointed or notched needle tips.

And many of them smell really good too. Love crushing the Ponderosa pine needles for what smells like citrus to me - similar with what I think is Japanese white pine.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, female flowers. Typically, softwood female flowers are in the upper crown and male pollen flowers are lower down. I believe this is to minimize self pollination. On small younger trees they tend to be interspersed more and don't produce many viable seed.

I've been seeing frost damage lately on balsam fir tips. We had some late spring frosts in low lying areas, typically spruce/fir stands. Black and red spruces are just emerging, while white spruce and balsam fir has grown 10 inches already on better sites.

Red spruce, hmmph! Nasty, prickly, brushy stuff to thin with a brush saw.  :D

[tonich]

Typically, softwood female flowers are in the upper crown and male pollen flowers are lower down. I believe this is to minimize self pollination.

Furthermore, due to the very same reason, they tend to flower in slightly different periods of the year.  ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Yes indeed my esteemed college from Bulgaria, soon to be a Canadian resident. ;D