CONIFERS 49 



somewhat darker sapwood ; largely manufactured into coarse lumber employed for 

 the outside 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, and southward through the northern states to New- 

 castle County, Delaware, southern Michigan, southwestern Wisconsin, and along the 

 Appalachian Mountains to northwestern Alabama; most abundant and frequently 



Pic, 47 



an important element of the forest in New England, northern New York, and west- 

 ern 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 the apex, dark green, lustrous and conspic- 

 uously 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, ^'-f ' long, about Jj' wide, decidu- 

 ous from the orange-red bases during their fifth year. Flowers: staminate tinged 

 with purple; pistillate purple, with broadly ovate bracts, scarious and erose on the 

 margins and about as long as their scales. Fruit on short stout stalks, oblong, !'-!' 

 long, with oblong scales gradually narrowed and rounded at the apex, rather abruptly 

 contracted at the base into distinct stipes, thin, 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 at maturity, their bracts rather longer than wide, wedge-shaped, 

 pale, nearly truncate or slightly pointed at the broad apex ; seeds ^' long, with 

 numerous small oil-vescicles on the lower side, and one quarter as long as the pale 

 lustrous wings broad or narrow at the base and narrowed to the rounded apex. 



A tree, usually 40-oO, or occasionally 70 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 

 2 in diameter, short stout often pendulous branches forming a handsome compact 

 pyramidal head, and slender light orange-brown pubescent branchlets, usually 

 becoming glabrous and dull brown more or less tinged with orange during their 



