Until this past summer, it was thought that subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) grew in only two locations in the Siskiyou Mountains—on Mt. Ashland and near Tanner Lakes in the Red Buttes Wilderness. However, in August botanists confirmed a third population in a high-elevation meadow below Dutchman Peak, the first found in the Applegate River watershed.
This is significant because although subalpine fir is common in coastal mountains from central Oregon to the Yukon, these Siskiyou Mountains populations are unusual and are some of the southernmost populations of this species, whose range extends only a little farther south into northern California, where it is one of California’s rarest conifer species.
Luke Ruediger, executive director of the Applegate Siskiyou Alliance, a local conservation organization, discovered the subalpine fir below Dutchman Peak, at the top of Yale Creek, a tributary of the Little Applegate River, in the summer of 2024. “I was helping lead a series of hikes, called the Siskiyou Crest Conifer Field Trip Series, for the Applegate Siskiyou Alliance in the summer of 2024” Ruediger recalls. “I had just been looking at the subalpine fir population on Mt. Ashland—the needle arrangement, color, and habit of the trees. Then, just a few weeks later, we led a trip into the meadow below Dutchman Peak to see another unusual conifer, the prostrate common juniper (Juniperus communis), and as we were walking up out of the meadow, this gnarly, shrubby conifer patch caught my eye because of the color and form. I said, ‘I think that’s a subalpine fir!’ and took some small sprigs for identification. When I got home, I looked up the botanical keys and was pretty certain it was subalpine fir.”
But Ruediger wanted to field-verify the findings with others, as identification can be tricky for this species. After waiting a year, Ruediger returned to the location with Wayne Rolle and Barbara Mumblo, retired botanists for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest; Julie Kierstead, retired botanist for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest; Cesar Garcia, botany technician for Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District; and me. Barbara Mumblo said she was “glad to be able to go to this site and identify the newlocation for this species with these botanists. Not too many people probably walk down to this
location,” she said, referring to the steep descent into the meadow. “Thanks to Luke’s observation, we were able to realize that it probably was Subalpine fir. I noticed right away that the position of the attachment of the needles to the branch stem is different than our Shasta or Red firs and White or Grand firs. It’s always wonderful to find a new location for a rare and uncommon species, especially in the Applegate Watershed” Mumblo said.
“Luke has a sharp eye” ; said Wayne Rolle, who was instrumental in confirming identification of the subalpine fir after dissecting the tree’s needles. “I probably would have walked right past this if I had been along the first time he saw it” ;
After Rolle’s research, identification was further verified from photos that Cesar Garcia took under a dissecting scope of a cross-section of the tree’s needles, which can have distinctive characteristics. Garcia was using sprigs from the subalpine fir trees on Mt. Ashland to compare with the population below Dutchman Peak. “I looked at the subalpine fir sprigs and confirmed that both the Mt. Ashland and Dutchman Peak samples display resin ducts closer to the midvein than the outer epidermal layer.
I cut the needles with a box cutter and stuck them within a pomade container to keep them
upright for the photos.” After the field trip and identification, Julie Kierstead submitted voucher specimens to the
herbaria at Oregon State University and Cal Poly Humboldt. With this newly discovered population of subalpine fir, the Applegate River watershed now has 26 documented conifer species. That’s a lot of conifer diversity for one watershed,
considering the entire Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains have 38 species.
To learn more about subalpine fir on the Siskiyou Crest and in the Klamath Mountains, including information about this newly discovered population and threats to the species, you can go to youtube.com/watch?v=JbqGko4Btm0 to watch a presentation Ruediger gave recently for the Siskiyou Chapter Native Plant Society of Oregon. “There’s always more to discover” says Ruediger.
By Suzie Savoie
klamathsiskiyou@gmail.com
Wayne Rolle, Suzie Savoie, Barbara Mumblo, Luke Ruediger, Julie Kierstead, and Cesar Garcia after the field
trip to look at the subalpine fir below Dutchman Peak. Photo by Cesar Garcia
