Eastern Hemlock
Tsuga canadensis · Pinaceae · Evergreen
Eastern hemlock is the graceful, drooping-topped conifer of cool ravines and north-facing slopes. Its tiny cones and the two white stripes on the needle underside identify it easily. Like ash, it is under severe pressure — the hemlock woolly adelgid has devastated stands across the eastern United States.
Quick facts
- Arrangement
- alternate
- Leaf
- Short flat needles about half an inch long, dark green above with two distinct white stripes underneath, arranged in flat sprays.
- Bark
- Cinnamon-brown, thick and deeply furrowed with scaly ridges.
- Fruit
- Very small cones, under an inch, hanging at the branch tips.
- Height
- 40–70 ft
How to confirm it
- Two white stripes on the underside of each flat needle.
- Very small cones, under an inch, dangling at the tips.
- Leading shoot at the top of the tree droops to one side rather than standing upright.
- Check for white woolly masses at the needle bases — that is the adelgid.
What it is confused with
One observation settles each of these.
Fir cones stand upright on the branch and its needles have blunt tips; hemlock cones hang and are far smaller.
Yew has no white stripes beneath and bears a red fleshy berry-like fruit rather than a cone.
Where it grows
Eastern North America, in cool moist ravines, north-facing slopes and stream valleys.
Start here: opposite or alternate?
Look at where the leaves join the twig. Are they in matched pairs directly across from each other, or staggered one after another? The vast majority of trees are alternate, so finding an opposite tree removes almost everything else in one step.
In North America, opposite-leaved trees are remembered as MAD Cap Horse: Maple, Ash, Dogwood, Caprifoliaceae (viburnums and elders), and Horse chestnut. That is very nearly the whole list.
Check partway along a healthy twig rather than at the tip, where crowding can make alternate leaves look paired. And check more than one twig.