SENĆOŦEN name: JSȺ¸IȽĆ
Native to western North America, including Victoria.
One of Victoria's most common trees: 1,313 on the map, about 1 in 27 trees (#4 of 384 species).
Show Douglas-fir trees on the map
Despite its common name, the Douglas-fir is not a true fir. It is also not a hemlock; the genus name Pseudotsuga means "false hemlock".
Many different Indigenous peoples used the bark, resin (pitch), and pine needles of Douglas-fir to make herbal treatments for various diseases. For the W̱SÁNEĆ people, Douglas-firs were the largest producer of pitch, which was a prized commodity for its many uses. Pitch was used in fire starting, patching open wounds as well as for sealing canoes. Bark for fuel would be cut from standing, living trees; self-pruned limbs from living trees used extensively for fuel; branches cut from living trees for pit-cooking, bedding, floor covering, and sweathouses.
Also used as a mixture with other plants for hair wash and skin wash during sweat bathing, needles as hair tonic (Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan); boughs used on floors, in sweathouse, for bereaved persons, used as tea during sweat bathing, cleansing agent (Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan, other groups); boughs used in ritual washing of twins, to construct puberty houses for girls, and in other ceremonial roles (Secwepemc, Okanagan, other Interior Plateau peoples) (Turner Bouchard, and Kennedy 1980; Turner, Thompson, et al. 1990).
Thick bark and wood were used as hot-burning fuels. Harpoon and spear shafts, dip net poles and hoops, arrow shafts, fish-barbecuing stakes. Bark slabs split off standing trees and used for shelter covering,
siding.
Douglas-fir seeds are an extremely important food source for small mammals such as moles, shrews, and chipmunks, which consume an estimated 65% of each annual seed crop.
The species is extensively used in forestry as a plantation tree for softwood timber. Douglas-fir has been commonly used as a Christmas tree since the 1920s.
The common name honors David Douglas, a Scottish botanist and collector who first reported the extraordinary nature and potential of the species. The specific epithet menziesii is after Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician and rival naturalist to David Douglas. Menzies first documented the tree on Vancouver Island in 1791.