For those who care about the fate of the Forest Service’s iconic badge, here’s a little something to give you sleepless nights. The Forest Service is getting a website makeover. Its new look (still in “beta” form) conforms in appearance to all other USDA agencies, e.g., NRCS, Farm Service Agency, Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Anyone for a blog pool on what date the badge will disappear from the FS’s new website banner?
Andy, I’d bet that the USFS “pine tree” logo (it’s a Doug-fir, IMHO) will stay on the USFS web site and elsewhere indefinitely. The outcry from USFS retirees and many others over plans to ditch the logo was hear loud and clear.
I’m with you, Steve, it’s a fir.
But a “true fir” (Abies) or “false-hemlock” (Pseudotsuga)? I’m leaning towards one of the Abies species . First, its symmetry, for which Abies species are noted. Second, its original artist, Edward Allen, who worked in California where Abies is the more common fir-like genus.
But the updated story says they get to keep it…
http://www.kcet.org/news/the_back_forty/commentary/golden-green/-three-months-after-the.html
Is true fir more common in California than Doug-fir? I saw a lot of both in working and playing in the Sierras and Coast Range from Big Sur north to Oregon. Maybe that’s a giant sequoia on the badge, or an incense-cedar (Libocedrus decurrens, or Calocedrus, if you prefer).
No matter. I like the USFS “conifer badge” and I hope the agency keeps it.
Being in Idaho, I’ll vote for either grand fir or subalpine. Doesn’t look like a pine, as noted. For anyone interested, I found this pretty old but interesting Jerry Franklin article on the true firs:
http://and.lternet.edu/lter/pubs/pdf/pub126.pdf
Looks like it’s still not optimized for mobile…. sigh.
I just hope they work to keep their websites operating and updated with the most current imformation. Interesting article on the true firs.
Let’s face it. It’s a stylized conifer that represents a range of North American species common to the National Forest System. I appreciate the reference “pine tree shield” for the badge I was privileged to wear because it represents the spirit and mission of the U.S. Forest Service that was and should be so well depicted in Elizabeth Canfield Flint’s 1943 “The Pine Tree Shield” novelized account of her husband Howard Flint’s career in the outfit (for which, by the way, a few other PNWFSA members and I are seeking a republication arrangement with Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) and because it does so with one syllable (an ability almost lost to modern bureaucracies). Long live the “pine tree shield”!