It is grown in plantations in Scotland and sold by the thousands throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. Fraser fir has been used more times as the Blue Room Christmas tree (the official Christmas tree of the President of the United States' White House) than any other type of tree. Its mild fragrance, shape, strong limbs, and ability to retain its soft needles (which do not prick easily when hanging ornaments) for a long time when cut make it one of the best trees for this purpose. Although it is not important as a source of timber, Fraser fir is widely used as a Christmas tree. It has also occasionally been called balsam fir, inviting confusion with Abies balsamea.Įthnobotany. In the past, it was also sometimes known as "she-balsam" because resin could be "milked" from its bark blisters,in contrast to the "he balsam" (red spruce) which could not be milked. It is sometimes misspelled as "Frazer" or "Frazier". The species is named in honor of Scottish botanist, John Fraser (1750–1811), who made numerous botanical collections in the region.
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fraseri (Pursh) (E.Murray), or a variety: Abies balsamea var. It is closely related to balsam fir ( Abies balsamea ), of which it has occasionally been treated as a subspecies, i.e. Botanique, is commonly known as Fraser's or southern balsam fir. Additions to the International Conifer RegisterĪbies fraseri,as described in 1817 by Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774–1820) and Jean Louis Marie Poiret (1755–1834), in Encyclopédie Méthodique.