The Taiga’s climate is ideal for the growth of fir trees. These boreal forests have many such fir trees growing, such as the Balsam fir tree and the White fir tree.

Like most trees in the Taiga, fir trees are coniferous; this means that they do not lose their leaves. Instead of traditional leaves, fir trees have needles, which have less of a surface area than leaves and therefore require less energy to grow.

Another reason these fir trees survive the cold is these needles are rather thick. This means that there is less transpiration than usual leaves.

Because of the extreme cold, they have adapted by growing tall and straight instead of having branches that spread out so that they can conserve their energy.

An interesting feature of fur trees is that they have remained unchanged from prehistoric times. This allows them to adapt themselves relatively easily to the hot climates, as much as the colder ones.

While some fir trees can easily adapt after a fire, the Balsam fir tree cannot. In fact, its seeds are completely destroyed following a fire, and it would re-grow about 30 to 50 years after a fire.