THE HEMLOCK.
The Hemlock is confessedly one of the most beautiful of the coniferous evergreens, though rather narrow in its dimensions. The principal branches are small and short with very slender terminations, in which it differs from all the other spruces. The multitude of these slender sprays, and their rows of soft delicate leaves, cause those beautiful undulations that characterize the foliage of this tree when moved by the wind. The leaves, of a light green on their upper surface and of a silvery whiteness beneath, are arranged in a row on each side of the branchlets. But while those of the other spruces are sessile, those of the Hemlock have slender footstalks, yielding them a slight mobility. The spangled glitter of the foliage is caused by a slightly tremulous motion of the terminal sprays.
In a deep wood the Hemlock shows some very important defects. There it forms a shaft from fifty to eighty feet in height without any diminution of its size, until near the summit, where it tapers suddenly, forming a head of foliage that projects considerably above the general level of the forest. The trunk is covered with dead branches projecting from it on all sides, causing it to wear a very unsightly appearance; and when the tree is sawed into boards, they are found to extend directly through the sapwood of the tree, making a hole in it as round as if it were bored with an auger. This is caused by the continued growth of the trunk of the tree after the decay of its branches, every year forming a new circle round the branch, but not inosculating with it, as in other trees.
The full beauty of the Hemlock is displayed on the edge of a wood, or on a plain where it has grown without impediment, feathering down to the ground. Here we observe how much less formal it is in shape than other conifers. When there are no gaps in its ramification, the numerous branches are mostly in close contact at their extremities, so that, when viewed from the outside of the wood, it seems nearly one uninterrupted mass of foliage, hiding the interior of the tree almost entirely from sight. In its perfection, when it has enjoyed an isolated growth, without any mechanical accident to mar its symmetry, it presents a fine tapering form without stiffness, and a mass of glittering foliage with which that of but few other trees is comparable.
The branches of the Hemlock are very numerous, perfectly horizontal, and remarkable for the absence of those regular whorls that distinguish other trees of this genus. They are put forth irregularly from all parts of the trunk, turning from their horizontal position gracefully upward, drooping a little at their termination, and endowed with great flexibility. The branches are minutely subdivided, forming with their leaves a flat surface, somewhat like the compound pinnate leaves of the cicuta, or poison hemlock. From this resemblance it undoubtedly obtained its name. These branches lie one above another, each bending over at its extremities upon the surface of those below, like the feathers upon the wings of a bird.
The bark of the Hemlock is of a reddish brown, divided by furrows that separate it into scales. The young trees have a smooth bark, like that of the balsam fir. The cones are very small, numerous, and pendent, of a fine crimson color when they first appear, attached to the ends of the branches, and arriving at maturity in the autumn. The Hemlock occupies all kinds of soil, though trees of a large size are found only where it is deep and fertile. It is fond of moisture, often extending its graceful boughs from the summits of granitic rocks and declivities wet with perpetual springs. “The Hemlock is natural to the coldest regions of America, and begins to appear about Hudson’s Bay, near Lake St. John; in the neighborhood of Quebec it fills the forests, and in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the States of Maine and Vermont, and a considerable part of New Hampshire, it constitutes three fourths of the evergreen woods. Further south it is less common, and in the Middle and Southern States it is seldom seen, except on the Alleghanies.”