THE EASTERN HEMLOCK. 17 



and the older ones become very large. The latter are covered with a 

 thick firm bark, the outer and thicker layer of a pale red color, the 

 very thin inner layer white. On the whole, hemlock is a shallow- 

 rooted species, and can thrive on very shallow soil. In deep soils, 

 however, the roots often penetrate to some depth. 



The leaves are small, flat, and narrow, and differ from those of 

 other northeastern conifers, except Carolina hemlock and the 

 Canadian yew or ground hemlock, in that their bases are contracted 

 into a very short stalk or petiole. (See c, fig. 2). They are usually 

 from one-third to two-thirds of an inch long and about one-fifth as 

 wide. Their color when they first Appear is a fresh, fight green, which 

 soon changes to a dark, lustrous green on the upper and whitish 

 green on the under surface, where the stomata are located. The 

 leaves fall during their third season. 



BUD SCALES. 



The few exterior scales of both flower and leaf buds are thick and 

 dark brown in color, while the inner scales are numerous, whitish- 

 green, becoming brown with age, thin, but of an exceedingly firm 

 structure. The scales remain persistent after the buds have expanded, 

 those of the leaf buds not wholly disappearing until the fifth or sixth 

 year. Up to this age the persistence of the scales affords a ready 

 means of determining the age of a branch. 



In the latitude of central New York the flowers expand about the 

 first of June. The male flowers appear in the axils of leaves on 

 shoots of the previous year, or less frequently on twigs which are 

 two or sometimes three years old (fig. 2). The female flowers are 

 borne singly at the ends of the twigs. 



The female flower, after fertilization, grows rapidly, and by 

 October becomes the ripened fruit — the cone. (See d, fig. 3.) Cones 

 are from one-half to three-fourths of an inch long and of equal breadth 

 when dry and the scales expanded, but only half as broad when closed. 

 They are pale green in color until maturity, when they become dark 

 brown. Only about 20 of the scales in the center of the cone are 

 seed bearing, the others being small and rudimentary. In a mature 

 cone, when dry, the scales are widely separated from each other, 

 standing at an angle of about 45 degrees with the axis, but when wet 

 they become appressed and closely overlap each other. 



1 The description of the following parts of the tree are drawn largely from a manuscript report on the 

 general structure and anatomy of hemlock by Prof. Atbey N. Prentiss, of Cornell University. 



60235°— Bull. 152—15 3 



