The Hemlock

Teacher’s Story

“O’er lonely lakes that wild and nameless lie,
Black, shaggy, vast and still as Barca’s sands
A hemlock forest stands. Oh forest like a pall!
Oh hemlock of the wild, Oh brother of my soul
I love thy mantle black, thy shaggy bole,
Thy form grotesque, thy spreading arms of steel.”

—Pattee.

N ITS prime, the hemlock is a magnificent tree. It reaches the height of from sixty to one hundred feet, is cone-shaped, its fine, dense foliage and its drooping branches giving to its appearance exquisite delicacy; and I have yet to see elsewhere such graceful tree-spires as are the hemlocks of the Sierras, albeit they have bending tips. However, an old hemlock becomes very ragged and rugged in appearance; and dying, it rears its wind-broken branches against the sky, a gaunt figure of stark loneliness. The hemlock branches are seldom broken by snow; they droop to let the burden slide off. The bark is reddish, or sometimes gray, and is furrowed into wide, scaly ridges. The foliage is a rich dark green, but whitish when seen from below. The leaves of the hemlock are really arranged in a spiral, but this is hard to demonstrate. They look as though they were arranged in double rows along each side of the little twig; but they are not in the same plane and there is usually a row of short leaves on the upper side of the twig. The leaf is blunt at the tip and has a little petiole of its own which distinguishes it from the leaves of any other species of conifer; it is dark, glossy green above, pale green beneath, marked with two white, lengthwise lines. In June, the tip of every twig grows and puts forth new leaves which are greenish yellow in color, making the tree very beautiful and giving it the appearance of blossoming. The leaves are shed during the third year. The hemlock cones are small and are borne on the tips of the twigs. The seeds are borne, two beneath each scale, and they have wings nearly as large as the scale itself. Squirrels are so fond of them that probably but few have an opportunity to try their wings. The cones mature in one year, and usually fall in the spring. The hemlock blossoms in May; the pistillate flowers are very difficult to observe as they are tiny and greenish and are placed at the tip of the twig. The pollen-bearing flowers are little, yellowish balls on delicate, short stems, borne along the sides of the twig.

Hemlock bark is rich in tannin and is used in great quantities for the tanning of leather. The timber, which is coarse-grained, is stiff and is used in framing buildings and for railroad ties; nails and spikes driven into it cling with great tenacity and the wood does not split in nailing. Oil distilled from the leaves of hemlock is used as an antiseptic.

The dense foliage of the hemlock offers a shelter to birds of all kinds in winter; even the partridges roost in the young trees. These young trees often have branches drooping to the ground, making an evergreen tent which forms a winter harbor for mice and other beasties. The seed-eating birds which remain with us during the winter, feed upon the seeds; and as the cones grow on the tips of the delicate twigs, the red squirrels display their utmost powers as acrobats when gathering this, their favorite food.