Abies pindrow

West Himalayan fir is in the pine or Pinaceae family and is native throughout the western Himalaya Mountain Range from Afghanistan to Nepal, growing at elevations from 1300 to 2000 m above sea level.

• Trees can reach 60 m tall; tree crown is narrow, conical, with short, horizontal branches.
• Leaves are needle-like, 4-9 cm long (among the longest of any fir), flat, glossy dark green above, with 2 whitish bands of stomata below, sharp-pointed when young. They are arranged spirally on the shoots, twisted at the base to lie in a flat plane on either side of the shoots. Needles are attached to the twig by a base resembling a small suction cup.
• The species is monoecious. Seed cones are upright, fragmenting, 10–18 cm long and 2.5-2.8 cm broad, deep purple when young, maturing to brown. Bracts on each seed scale are short, do not protrude; cones disintegrate at maturity of late autumn, releasing 2 winged seed from each cone scale.
• Buds are ovate, large, brown, sometimes resinous; bark on young trees is smooth, gray, becoming scaly and fissured with age.