Pacific Silver Fir is native to the Pacific Northwest of North America, occurring in the Pacific Coast Ranges and the Cascade Range from the extreme southeast of Alaska, through western British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, to the extreme northwest of California. It grows at altitudes of sea level to 1,500 meters in the north of the range, and 1,000-2,300 meters in the south of the range, always in temperate rain forest with relatively high precipitation and cool, humid summers. Common associate trees are Douglas fir and California buckeye. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 30-45 meters (exceptionally 72 meters) tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1.2 meters (exceptionally 2.3 meters). The bark on younger trees is light grey, thin and covered with resin blisters. On older trees, it darkens and develops scales and furrows. The leaves are needle-like, flattened, 2-4.5 centimeters long and 2 millimeters wide by 0.5 millimeters thick, matt dark green above, and with two white bands of stomata below, and slightly notched at the tip. The leaf arrangement is spiral on the shoot, but with each leaf variably twisted at the base so they lie flat to either side of and above the shoot, with none below the shoot. The shoots are orange-red with dense velvety fine hair. The cones are 9-17 centimeters long and 4-6 centimeters broad, dark purple before maturity; the scale leafs are short, and hidden in the closed cone. The winged seeds are released when the cones disintegrate at maturity about 6-7 months after pollination.