Western Hemlock 



67 



The wood is rather soft, brittle, weak, coarse-grained, and light brown; its 

 specific gravity is about 0.43. It is not an article of commerce. 



It thrives well in cultivation, and is, perhaps, even more beautiful than our 

 northern Hemlock. 



3. WESTERN HEMLOCK Tsuga heterophylla (Rafinesque) Sargent 

 Abies heterophylla Rafinesque. Tsuga Mertensiana Engelmann, not Carriere 



This, the largest of its genus, is also variously called Western spruce, Western 

 hemlock spruce. Prince Albert spruce, Alaska pine, and Hemlock. It is abundant 

 in southern Alaska, southward to Mendocino county, California, extending east- 

 ward into Montana and 

 Idaho. It grows in 

 rich, moist soil near the 

 coast, and along streams 

 up to an altitude of 

 1900 meters, reaching 

 its maximum height of 



60 meters and a trunk 

 diameter of 3 m. in the 

 fertile valleys nearest 

 the coast. 



The slender 

 branches are short and 

 pendulous, forming a 

 narrow cone. The bark 

 of old trees is 3 to 4 

 cm. thick, deeply fur- 

 rowed into obHque ridges and breaking into thick irregular scales of a dark red- 

 brown color; the younger bark is quite smooth, shallowly fissured into flat plates 

 of a dark orange-brown color. The slender twigs are long-hairy, pale brown, be- 

 coming dark red-brown and thinly scaly with age. The winter buds are ovoid 

 and light brown. The leaves are linear, flat, i to 2 cm. long, about i mm. wide, 

 entire or minutely spiny-toothed toward the blunt apex, entire and tapering ab- 

 ruptly to the slender woody leaf-stalk; they are dark green, shining, and deeply 

 grooved on the upper side, pale green and marked by rows of white stomata 

 beneath. The staminate flowers are oblong, about 5 mm. long, and yellow. The 

 pistillate flowers are terminal, oblong-cylindric, about 10 mm. long, and purple. 

 The sessile cones are oblong to oval, 2.5 to 3 cm. long, 10 to 15 mm. thick, taper- 

 ing both ways from the middle, light red-brown when mature, the scales thin, 

 slightly ridged and hairy on the outer side, longer than broad, sometimes narrowed 

 at about the middle or below; the bracts are rounded, abruptly pointed and pur- 



FiG. 53. Western Hemlock. 



