Abies koreana


Abies koreana, the Korean fir, is a species of fir native to the higher mountains of South Korea, including Jeju Island. It grows at altitudes of in temperate rainforest with high rainfall and cool, humid summers, and heavy winter snowfall.
It is a small to medium-sized evergreen coniferous tree growing to tall with a trunk diameter of up to, smaller and sometimes shrubby at the tree line. The bark is smooth with resin blisters and grey-brown in colour. The leaves are needle-like, flattened, long and wide by thick, glossy dark green above, and with two broad, vividly white bands of stomata below, and slightly notched at the tip. The leaf arrangement is spiral on the shoot, but with each leaf variably twisted at the base so they lie mostly either side of and above the shoot, with fewer below the shoot. The shoots are green-grey at first, maturing pinkish-grey, with scattered fine pubescence. The cones are long and broad, dark purple-blue before maturity; the scale bracts are long, green or yellow, and emerge between the scales in the closed cone. The winged seeds are released when the cones disintegrate at maturity about 5–6 months after pollination.

Cultivation

Korean fir is a popular ornamental plant in parks and gardens in temperate climates, grown for its foliage but also for the abundant cone production even on young trees only tall. The following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit: