44 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



the winter and mostly persistent on the branches until the following spring; seeds T ^' 

 long, usually with 2 or 3 large oil-vesicles, nearly half as long as their wings broad at 

 the base and gradually tapering to the rounded apex. 



A tree, usually 60-70, and occasionally 100 high, with a trunk 2-4 in diameter, 

 gradually and conspicuously tapering toward the apex, long slender horizontal or pendu- 

 lous branches, persistent until overshadowed by other trees, and forming a broad-based 

 rather obtuse pyramid, and slender light yellow-brown pubescent branchlets, growing 

 darker during their first winter and glabrous and dark red-brown tinged with purple in 

 their third season. Winter-buds obtuse, light chestnut-brown, slightly puberulous, about 

 T V long. Bark \'-\' thick, deeply divided into narrow rounded ridges covered with thick 

 closely appressed scales varying from cinnamon-red to gray more or less tinged with purple. 

 Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, difficult to work, liable to wind-shake 

 and splinter, not durable when exposed to the air, light brown tinged with red, with thin 

 somewhat darker sap wood; largely manufactured into coarse lumber employed for the out- 

 side finish of buildings. The astringent inner bark affords the largest part of the material 

 used in the northeastern states and Canada in tanning leather. From the young branches 

 oil of hemlock is distilled. 



Distribution. Scattered through upland forests and often covering the northern slopes 

 of rocky ridges and the steep rocky banks of narrow river-gorges from Nova Scotia to 

 eastern Minnesota (Carleton County), and southward through the northern states to New- 

 castle County, Delaware, cliffs of Tuckahoe Creek, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, 

 southern Michigan, southern Indiana (bank of Back Creek near Leesville, Laurence 

 County), southwestern Wisconsin, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern 

 Georgia, and in northern Alabama; most abundant and frequently an important element 

 of the forest in New England, northern New York, and western Pennsylvania ; attaining 

 its largest size near streams on the slopes of the high mountains of North Carolina and 

 Tennessee. 



Largely cultivated with numerous seminal varieties as an ornamental tree in the northern 

 states, and in western and central Europe. 



2. Tsuga caroliniana Engelm. Hemlock. 



Leaves retuse or often emarginate at apex, dark green, lustrous and conspicuously 

 grooved on the upper surface, marked on the lower surface by a band of 7 or 8 rows of 



stomata on each side of 

 the midrib, \'-\' long, 

 about T V wide, decidu- 

 ous from the orange- 

 red bases during their 

 fifth year. Flowers: 

 male tinged with pur- 

 ple; female purple, 

 with broadly ovate 

 bracts, scarious and 

 erose on the margins 

 and about as long as 

 their scales. Fruit on 

 short stout stalks, ob- 

 long, I'-l^' long, with 

 narrow-oval scales 

 gradually narrowed 

 Fig. 47 and rounded at apex, 



rather abruptly con- 

 tracted at base into distinct stipes, thiri, concave, puberulous on the outer surface, twice 

 as long as their broad pale bracts, spreading nearly at right angles to the axis of the cone 



