(European Silver Fir, Silver Fir)

The tall European silver fir reaches great heights with age. Young trees were traditionally used as Christmas trees in Central Europe before North American fir species were introduced to the market. The pyramidal young trees develop wider, more flattened canopies as they grow. They also become enormous. Populations of grand specimens exist throughout the southern mountains of Europe, from the Pyrennes eastward to the Alps and into the Caucusus.

The flattened needles of this fragrant fir are...

(Silver Fir)

The tall European silver fir reaches great heights with age. Young trees were traditionally used as Christmas trees in Central Europe before North American fir species were introduced to the market. The pyramidal young trees develop wider, more flattened canopies as they grow. They also become enormous. Populations of grand specimens exist throughout the southern mountains of Europe, from the Pyrennes eastward to the Alps and into the Caucusus.

The flattened needles of this fragrant fir are...

(European Silver Fir, Silver Fir)

A densely needled ornamental conifer, the European silver fir selection 'Pyramidalis' has deep green needles with a silvery underside. It was found as a sport on a silver fir growing in England in 1851. Native to southern Europe's mountains, from the Pyrennes eastward across the Alps and into the Caucusus, its shape lends it to more ornate uses in park and garden settings than the parent species. The smooth gray bark will eventually crack into plates.

The branches often grow upwards at an angle...

(Pacific Silver Fir)

A very tall, spire-like evergreen in the wild, the Pacific silver fir remains much shorter and more pyramidal in form when grown in gardens. Native to the panhandle of Alaska southward to Victoria Island and western Oregon's Cascade range, this fir prospers where summers are moist and cool and winters cold and snowy. The bark is light gray and smooth but with age, the trunk displays plates floating on an underbark of reddish brown.

New branch shoots emerge at right angles in opposite pairs,...

(Pacific Silver Fir)

A very tall, spire-like evergreen in the wild, the Pacific silver fir remains much shorter and more pyramidal in form when grown in gardens. Native to the panhandle of Alaska southward to Victoria Island and western Oregon's Cascade range, this fir prospers where summers are moist and cool and winters cold and snowy. The bark is light gray and smooth but with age, the trunk displays plates floating on an underbark of reddish brown.

New branch shoots emerge at right angles in opposite pairs,...

(Bornmueller's Fir)

Rare in cultivation but occurring naturally only in a small area of northwestern Turkey, Bornmueller's fir has a controversial identity. While some taxonomists consider it nothing more that a variant of the Caucasian or Nordman's fir (Abies nordmanniana), others think it arose from the natural hybridization of the Nordman's fir with the Greek fir (A. cephalonica). Regardless of origin, this pyramidal but narrow evergreen tree demonstrates increased tolerance to heavier textured...

(Grecian Fir, Greek Fir)

The highlands of Greece reveal stands of this tall evergreen conifer, appropriately known as the Grecian fir. It grows on calcareous and alkaline soils at elevations between 1,800 and 7,000 feet. When mature, the tree's silhouette is a tall, broadly pyramid with horizontal branches.

When young, the Grecian fir has smooth, reddish brown branches, but with age the bark is gray with streaks of pink and brown on fissured, oblong plates. The flattened needles are glossy dark green with a whitish...

(Cilician Fir)

A beautiful evergreen tree, the Cilician fir produces a pointy top and dense foliage and branches that grow on upward-growing branches that persist on the lowest parts of the trunk. This slow-growing conifer is native to highland pockets from Lebanon and northern Syria northward into south-central Turkey. It matures with a narrow, pyramid-like silhouette with ash-gray bark that becomes fissured and plated with great age.

Needles spread upward and forward in two ranks on the occasionally fuzzy...

(Japanese Fir, Momi Fir)

The wood of the momi fir is light colored and traditionally used to make coffins in its native Japan. A tall-growing evergreen, momi fir grows in Japan's highlands intermixed with other conifers. This tree grows slowly in its youth, retaining a dense, upright pyramid shape. When mature, the straight trunk becomes massive and the scattered horizontal branches look somewhat like the silhouette of an old white pine.

The emerald green needles are flattened and are alternating on the twigs in two...

(Chinese Lantern, Flowering Maple, Parlor Maple)

Abutilon, commonly called flowering maple, embodies approximately 150 species and many more cultivated varieties. These may be annuals, perennials or shrubs and naturally exist in sub-tropical to tropical regions globally. Many perennial species and shrubs are grown as a tender perennial for containers and annual flower beds. Common hybrid forms arise from crosses between the two parent species, Abutilon darwinii and Abutilon pictum.

While growing conditions are favorable abutilons...