Talk:Douglas fir

Overlap with Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii

Almost all of this article duplicates Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii. Skimming the discussion over this article's name, it's clear that confusion between the species and genus is a major concern. Having two separate articles with near-identical information tends to similar confusion between species and variants, and the articles are largely identical except for the introductory sections.

The situation also lends itself to gradual divergence of the two texts, which could lead to similar but conflicting articles, which would be even worse. Also, helpful edits may not be reproduced in both places, as has already happened with the photo and the information about ornamental plantings under "Uses" here. Can someone who knows the biology help? I think the information should be distributed so this article has whatever applies to the whole species and the other has whatever is unique to the coast variant. I also think the variant article should make clear that more general information on the whole species is available here, and maybe should be shorter if there's not enough that's unique about the variant. I think the article on variant glauca does a good job.

If after a while no one with expertise has done anything, I may come back and do my best to sort it out. Thanks! W.stanovsky (talk) 16:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

W.stanovsky is correct. A lot of the material in this article was taken verbatim from the PD source Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii, published in the Fire Effects Information System by the United States Forest Service. The original source is about the subspecies Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii. Somehow, editing this article over the last 15 years has erased this fact. Since 2012, there has been an article about the subspecies. I will leave this material at that other article (suitably referenced).

Given that I excised some subspecies-specific material, the images became too crowded, so I dropped a few of them from the article. —hike395 (talk) 09:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

The tallest tree in the United Kingdom Comment

According to the BBC is not Dughall Mor, but an unnamed Douglas fir nearby. אביהו (talk) 13:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

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Suggestion to add information about Fire Adaptation

Hi all, new here. I wanted to suggest an addition of information about fire adaptability of Douglas fir. Perhaps it could be nested under the Ecology heading, or have its own heading. Here are two potential sources:

LarixOccidentalis (talk) 03:34, 26 October 2017 (UTC)LarixOccidentalis

References

Suggestion for those referring to plant diseases

A common mistake is to write as if a disease and the pathogen are the same thing. They are completely different. So sentences like "Fungi such as Laminated root-rot and shoestring root-rot can cause significant damage" is like a poke in the eye to a reader who knows better. One could substitute 'Diseases' or 'Fungal diseases' for 'Fungi' and be correct. (By the way, 'Laminated' should be lower-case. Disease names are almost universally written lower-case except when a genus name forms part of the disease name.)

A related error that is regrettably common is to refer to common and scientific names of diseases. Diseases don't have "scientific" names. Almost invariably the writer really means disease and pathogen names, respectively. Coniophora (talk) 23:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca young female cone - Keila.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for June 5, 2024. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2024-06-05. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you!  — Amakuru (talk) 18:43, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae, which is native to western North America. The trees grow to a height of around 20 to 100 metres (70 to 330 feet) and commonly reach 2.4 metres (8 feet) in diameter. The largest coast Douglas firs regularly live for more than 500 years, with the oldest specimens more than 1,300 years old. The cones are pendulous and differ from true firs as they have persistent scales. The cones have distinctive long, trifid (three-pointed) bracts, which protrude prominently above each scale. The cones become tan when mature, measuring 6 to 10 centimetres (2+1⁄2 to 4 inches) long for coastal Douglas firs. This photograph shows a young female cone of the variety Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir), cultivated near Keila, Estonia.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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Uses: coffee substitute?

Certainly you can put the needles/leaves into hot water to make a flavored hot drink, but is every flavored hot drink a coffee substitute? I guess it depends on how you think about it, and maybe also on how badly you wish you had some coffee. :)

(When I put leaves in a pot with hot water, drink the resulting liquid, and throw away the wet leaves, I usually call it tea, but of course that's false terminology too unless the leaves are from Camellia sinensis.)

If people in the area were already drinking Douglas-fir-needle-water before they ever heard of coffee, I think that would at least come close to showing that this is its own thing. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers, I agree it seems weird and I took a look at the copy of Northwest Trees available online and it was not in that edition. The linked google books search turns up "coffee" in the text of a 2020 edition, but looking elsewhere online there does not seem to be a 2020 edition. I'm not sure what is going on there. I have taken the information out pending a better understanding of the context and the source. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 01:40, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. It may even be a good coffee substitute; it just seems like an odd claim that would do better with direct support, reasons, etc. Such as "it does taste like coffee" or "it has surprisingly high caffeine, for a pine tree" 🙂 TooManyFingers (talk) 05:41, 7 June 2024 (UTC)