Plants trees, 10-80 m tall, trunks 0.5- 4 mm in diameter at maturity. Short shoots absent. Leaves single, linear, flat, attached directly to the branches [long shoots], bases resembling suction cups, leaving a smooth, round scar linear, tips often notched, lower surfaces with 2 whitish lines formed by wax covering of stomates, upper surfaces green and shiny, sometimes with a few stomates, visible as whitish dots, near the tips or glaucous and grey-green to bluish-grey or silvery and dull. Male strobili ovoid or cylindric oblong, on young branches, axillary; anthers yellow or red. Cones [femle strobili] large, brightly colored, ripening in the first year, upright, restricted to the upper branches; cone scales entire, deciduous; cone scale bracts from much smaller than to longer than the scales; cone axes persistent, upright. Seeds falling attached to the cone scales.
Abies includes 50-60 species. They are all native to the northern hemisphere, growing in North and Central Ameria, Eurasia and northern Africa.