The Bigcone Douglas Fir of Washington Park Arboretum

This fir is about a thousand miles from where its species grows wild. Pseudotsuga macrocarpa is native only to the mountains of southern California, and the largest one known in Washington State is standing in a public arboretum in Seattle. It was recorded as a state champion in Robert Van Pelt's 2003 survey of Washington's biggest trees, and the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, who run the Arboretum, list it as one of their champions and have been re-measuring it. Both of those threads run back to the same 2003 survey, so the title rests on one original piece of fieldwork rather than two. The reason to walk out and see it is in the name. Bigcone Douglas fir carries by far the largest cones in its genus, several times the size of the ones that litter every pavement in this part of the world, and a tree that size drops them where you can pick one up. It is a curiosity rather than a giant, and it is the sort of thing an arboretum exists for. No age or girth has been published for it. It stands on the Upper Trail just south of the Pacific Connections New Zealand Forest Garden, at the south end of the Arboretum; the pin marks the Arboretum itself.