I'm feel like I know how to tell the difference between a fir and a pacific yew but I have to cut some fir saplings and am afraid I'm gonna mistake a yew. Can someone confirm these are fir's and if you have any concrete differences that would be great. This is in the Sierra Nevada's in California.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/61152/79817888-5258-43F8-A551-9B3D401B53BD.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1619655890)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/61152/3D1275F2-1D5E-4C8E-A481-BFAED48860C8.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1619655890)
I'm a know-nothing amateur but I thought firs typically look like trees and yew usually look more shrub-y.
After doing a search on both, the yew pictures I'm seeing look significantly larger than I realized, but still like a bush or shrub, just really big. Fir looks like it tends to look like a tree.
Not a Pacific Yew at all. Yew has short pointy needles, grows irregular, with generally smooth reddish bark, although I have seen variations on the bark. A fir fir shir! Perhaps Grand or Shasta Red
Looking in my Pacific Coast Tree Finder, I follow this trail through the guide:
Branches/twigs have smooth, round scars where old needles have falling off, then it is a FIR
If the base of the needles is a skinny stalk AND round tips, then it is a White Fir
If no round scars, needles are flat (cannot twirl between thumb and forefinger)
And if the needles are pointed tips and the top of the needle has a ridge, then it is Pacific Yew.
If the needle has everything above but a groove instead of a ridge, then it is a redwood.
Hope that helps.
Thanks so much for the help everyone. This helped out so much. I have to clear Fir and Cedar seedlings in a grove of giant sequoias and pacific yews. Wanted to make sure I don't make a mistake on the little ones. I was able to verify all this today on a side by side comparison and don't think I would mistake them now.
Yew of any size has this color in the bark ██████ and darker toward purple. You have a fir there. Used to find some 4" sized ones in logging slash on the BC coast. I have some Canada yew on my land, but it just grows knee high and spreads around like running club moss. Bark never gets any color to it.
If yew are from the Deep South (y'all), yew ususally don't know yew.
Now we're talkin'