The balsam fir has flat, one-inch needles that grow singly on its branches, and in fall its cones cling upright like a spiky candelabra. Rubbing a needled branch releases the spicy smell of the northwoods. Red squirrels help create colonies of balsam firs by burying piles of seeds. Algonquian Indians used sticky resin from the balsam as a protective, healing covering on burns. Nearby, an old tree plantation grew poorly, possibly from drought or disease, and nature has filled the gaps with a mixture of native tree species among scant rows of spindly white pines.