Okanagan’s Nature Nut – a nature blog by Roseanne Van Ee – December 15th, 2025

December 15th, 2025

Our Native Christmas Tree

If you’re already familiar with Douglas-fir trees, then pass this on.  It’s surprising how few people know our local native trees and plants, or even the wildlife that requires them. 

Everyone living here should know this tree.  Why?  Because it’s the major species in our Okanagan/Shuswap forests and landscapes.  And dead or alive, they’re important to our native wildlife. The Douglas-fir is economically valuable as the timber producing king of western North America.  It’s also our typical, uncultivated, naturally fragrant Christmas tree.  Do you have one?

You can often see it growing in a variety of forest types throughout BC.  Here it grows from valley bottom up to the subalpine. Our mature Interior Douglas-fir trees grow 20–50 metres (70–150’) tall. Its leaves are flat, soft, individual needles 2-4cm (~1”) long, that completely encircle the branches. New spring growth on the branch tips stands out brightly.  And as the trees grow they lose their lower branches.  

The young trees’ bark is thin, smooth and grey with numerous resin blisters. On mature trees, usually exceeding 80 years, its thick and corky bark has distinctive vertical fissures caused by the growing tree’s gradual expansion. This thick bark makes the Douglas-fir quite fire-resistant.  The female cones hang downwith scales overlapping distinctive long, three-pointed bracts which resemble the back half of a mouse with two feet and a tail. Take a look at one. 

It’s Latin name Pseudotsuga menziezii means “false hemlock” in honour of Scottish naturalist-surgeon, Dr. Archibald Menzies, who accompanied Captain George Vancouver in 1791.  Its common name honours another Scott, explorer-botanist, Sir David Douglas, from the 1890s. Our original native Okanagan people called it tsk’ilhp’s.  

They ate its rare white crystalline sugar raw or mixed with black tree lichen or wild sunflower/Arrow-leaf Balsam Root seeds.  The wood made teepee/lean-to poles and spear shafts.  The boughs made roofing, bedding and flooring material.  Today our homes are mostly framed with fir lumber and plywood.

Squirrels, mice and birds love the Douglas-fir seeds. Woodpeckers and other insectivores feast on spruce budworm, bark beetles and other insects attracted to these trees.  Huge dead and dying Douglas-fir snags make fabulous Wildlife Tree habitats providing food, shelter, storage and cavity nesting. They also make awesome lookout perches and nesting trees for hawks, eagles, owls and osprey.  

In moist forests, downed Douglas-firs become attractive nursing logs resembling fairytale woods for elves with mosses, lichens, mushrooms and tree sprouts.  And you can often find large fir stumps in our forests; some with new trees growing up from them.  

If you have a Douglas-fir tree in your yard – enjoy it and take care of it.  They attract birds, add to your property value and can live for a few hundred years.  Why not decorate your fir tree for Christmas instead of chopping one down.  Or buy one from a local community group that trims under powerlines or on utility access areas for fundraising.  

Now go outside and see if you can find a Douglas-fir tree.  Can you see the mice hiding under the cone scales?  

C