Douglas Fir Culturally Modified Trees: Some Initial Considerations Darcy Mathews and Pete Dady Paper presented at the Northwest Anthropological Conference, April 24, 2008 Douglas Fir Culturally Modified Trees: Some Initial Considerations Darcy Mathews University of Victoria and Pete Dady Independent Archaeologist 1. Introduction Douglas‐fir is the common name applied to coniferous tree of the genus Pseudotsuga, named after Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician and naturalist who first discovered the tree on Vancouver Island in 1791, and David Douglas, the Scottish botanist who later identified the tree elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest in 1826. Psuedotsuga menziesii The Douglas fir can reach up to 85 meters in height on the coast and 42 meters in the interior. The bark is smooth, grey‐brown, blistered when young and becomes furrowed, thick, dark reddish‐brown ridges as the tree ages. This thick bark makes Douglas fir very resistant to low intensity fires, and as natural and anthropogenic fires has been a major component of Douglas‐fir forests throughout at least the mid to late Holocene, this has resulted in almost pure stands of Douglas‐fir throughout parts of the Pacific Northwest.