IV 
TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS 
(OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFERZ, oF THE 
FAMILY PINACE, or THE TRIBE ABIETINE, 
OF THE GENUS PICEA, AND SUB-DIVISION TSUGA) 
INTRODUCTORY 
O Hemlock tree! O Hemlock tree! How faithful are thy branches, 
Green not alone in summer-time, 
But in the winter’s frost and rime, 
O Hemlock tree! O Hemlock tree! How faithful are thy- branches, 
LonGFELLow. 
WE who perforce in early days of life sallied or were 
sent forth from home in quest of knowledge, to drink 
at the Pierian springs of Greek history within the 
classical courts of our public schools, may be prone 
to jump wrongly to a conclusion that the Hemlock 
tree had some connection with a certain deadly drug, 
that we were instructed by school-books was meted 
out to those who were regarded in the light of a social 
or political inconvenience by the pro-tem. Government 
of the day which. ruled in mighty Athens. 
That the historical cup of Hemlock (xeéveiov, or 
in Latin language, Conium Maculatum), which 
quenched for centuries the bold spirit of philosophy 
had any connection with the tree under discussion 
would be quite an erroneous basis for our investiga- 
tions. The Hemlock plant—not tree—is a _ wild 
umbelliferous poisonous plant of the genus Conium, 
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