Abies alba, the European silver fir or silver fir, is a fir native to the mountains of Europe, from the Pyrenees north to Normandy, east to the Alps and the Carpathians, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and south to Italy, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Albania and northern Greece; it is also commonly grown on Christmas tree plantations in the North East region of North America spanning New England in the US to the Maritime provinces of Canada. Description Abies alba is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to tall and with a trunk diameter up to . The largest measured tree was tall and had a trunk diameter of . It occurs at altitudes of (mainly over ), on mountains with rainfall over per year. The leaves are needle-like, flattened, long and wide by thick, glossy dark green above, and with two greenish-white bands of stomata below. The leaf is usually slightly notched at the tip. The cones are long and broad, with about 150-200 scales, each scale with an exserted bract and two winged seeds; they disintegrate when mature to release the seeds. The wood is white, leading to the species name alba. When cultivated on Christmas Tree plantations, the tree naturally forms a symmetrical triangle shape. The trees are full and dense with smell of resin, and are known to be one of the longest lasting after being cut. In the forest the evergreen tends to form stands with other firs and beeches. It is closely related to Bulgarian fir (Abies borisiiregis) further to the southeast in the Balkan Peninsula, Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) of Spain and Morocco and Sicilian fir (Abies nebrodensis) in Sicily, differing from these and other related Euro-Mediterranean firs in the sparser foliage, with the leaves spread either side of the shoot, leaving the shoot readily visible from above. Some botanists treat Bulgarian fir and Sicilian fir as varieties of silver fir, as A. alba var. acutifolia and A. alba var. nebrodensis, respectively. Ecology Silver fir is an important component species in the dinaric calcareous block fir forest in the western Balkan Peninsula. In Italy, the silver fir is an important component of the mixed broadleaved-coniferous forest of the Apennine Mountains, especially in northern Apennine. The fir prefer a cold and humid climate, in northern exposition, with a high rainfall (over 1500 mm per year). In the oriental Alps of Italy, silver firs grow