Abies lasiocarpa(Hook.) Nutt.

Alpine FirSubalpine Firsubalpine fir

WFO wfo-0000511232 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Lyrae
fig. a Lyrae, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 197097057
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. b Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180661254
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. c Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164789573
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Braden J. Judson
fig. d Braden J. Judson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 163109727
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Randal
fig. e Randal, CC0 1.0 / obs. 157978351
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by David Anderson
fig. f David Anderson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155632795
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Jared Shorma
fig. g Jared Shorma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160248033
Abies lasiocarpa, photographed by Ben Meredyk
fig. h Ben Meredyk, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153836338

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
195017
Filed as
Abies lasiocarpa var. lasiocarpa
Det. by
C. R. Annable 1995-01-01
Collected
C. R. Annable 1995-07-26
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 15 botanical countries

Regions where Abies lasiocarpa is native: Alaska, Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Northwest Territories, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon AlaskaAlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaNew MexicoNorthwest TerritoriesOregonWashingtonWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Abies lasiocarpa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
Northwest Territories NWT
Oregon ORE
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,952 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.1 °C -12.3 °C -5.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.2 °C 19.2 °C 24.3 °C
Annual rainfall 541 mm 1,296 mm 3,501 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 77 mm 162 mm 306 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,952 research-grade observations of Abies lasiocarpa that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 24 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Abies amabilis Parl.
  • Abies arizonica Merriam
  • Abies balsamea f. compacta B.Boivin
  • Abies balsamea subsp. lasiocarpa B.Boivin
  • Abies balsamea var. arizonica (Merriam) B.Boivin
  • Abies bifolia A.Murray bis
  • Abies bifolia var. arizonica (Merriam) O'Kane & K.D.Heil
  • Abies concolor var. lasiocarpa (Hook.) Beissn.
  • Abies grandis var. lasiocarpa (Hook.) Lavallée
  • Abies lasciocarpa Sarg.
  • Abies lasiocarpa f. compacta Beissn.
  • Abies lasiocarpa f. conica (Hornibr.) Rehder
  • Abies lasiocarpa subsp. arizonica (Merriam) A.E.Murray
  • Abies lasiocarpa subsp. bifolia (A.Murray bis) Silba
  • Abies lasiocarpa var. bifolia (A.Murray bis) Eckenw.
  • Abies lasiocarpa var. conica Hornibr.
  • Abies lasiocarpa var. fallax (Engelm.) Franco
  • Abies subalpina Engelm.
  • Abies subalpina var. fallax Engelm.
  • Picea bifolia A.Murray bis
  • Picea lasiocarpa (Hook.) A.Murray bis
  • Pinus beissneri Voss
  • Pinus lasiocarpa Hook.
  • Pinus lasiocarpa f. compacta Voss

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.