(95) 



by its lustrous green leaves, by its early falling cones, and 

 by the scales of the cones, which are scarcely ever notched. 

 The red spruce is also used in making paper pulp and its 

 sap furnishes the commercial spruce gum. It grows in a 

 narrow belt from New Brunswick to Tennessee. Both these 

 spruce trees are essentially northern plants, and in the 

 Hudson Valley are more common near the mountains than 

 southward. 



Hemlock Spruce Tsuga canadensis 



The hemlock, one of our slow-growing evergreens, reaches 

 its greatest development in the northern part of the continent. 

 It frequently forms exclusive forests under favorable condi- 

 tions, but southward the trees become scattered and inter- 

 mingled with other kinds. One of the most southerly groves 

 is that within the grounds of the Botanical Garden where the 

 tree has practically exclusive control of a tract of some 35 

 acres. It is common along the Palisades. 



The tree is sometimes as high as 120 feet, with a stout 

 trunk covered with a coarse roughly ridged bark. The 

 branches stand out straight from the trunk when old or 

 droop slightly at their tips. The arrangement of the twigs 

 and leaves in a practically flat plane with the branch gives the 

 tree a very characteristic and beautiful fades. Unlike the 

 spruce the leaves of this hemlock are flat; they are bluish 

 green on the under side and dark olive green on the upper. 

 They are seldom more than 2 /z inch long and rounded at the 

 tip. 



The cones mature the first season and shed their seeds dur- 

 ing the winter; they are smaller than the cones of the pines, 

 scarcely ever being more than % i ncn l° n g- They are 

 usually found attached by a short stalk to the tips of the 

 young branches. 



The rough coarse lumber of the hemlock is used only for 

 general construction purposes, and the tree is of economic 

 importance almost solely on account of its bark which is an 

 important agent in tanning leather. 



