Sargent's fir hybrid: Abies amabilis x lasicarpa

Abstract

On a short trip into the northern Olympic Mountains of Washington in the summer of 1896, Professor Charles Sprague Sargent found a fir tree that he thought might be a natural hybrid between Abies amabilis (Dougl.) Forbes and A. lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt. The founder and Director of the Arnold Arboretum, Sargent was generally recognized as America's preeminent dendrologist. His brief description of the putative hybrid (Sargent, 1898) is still the only report of natural hybridization between A. amabilis and any of the firs with which it grows (Klaehn & Winieski, 1962). On the same trip Sargent encountered a tree that he identified as A. nobilis (Dougl.) Lindley (since renamed A. procera Rehd.). His report that this species grew in the Olympic Mountains persisted in the literature of botany and forestry for many years before it was dropped for lack of confirmation. In this paper the identity of these firs is reexamined, and the unusual circumstances of their collection is reviewed.

Citation

Critchfield, William B. 1977. Sargent''s fir hybrid: Abies amabilis x lasicarpa. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum Volume 58, Number 1: p. 52-59