Sunday, 8:30 AM. 11degrees, wind W, calm. The skies are mostly blue and the barometer predicts sunny skies. It is a fine winter day, almost, maybe a “10”.The trees pictured are Canadian hemlocks, Tsuga canadensis, large beautiful forest trees native to northern Wisconsin and the other Great Lakes states, southern Ontario and Quebec along the St. Laurence River; New England, New York and higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains. It has very short, soft yellow-green needles with whitish undersides, and small hanging cones. Its wood is not particularly useful except for rough construction. Its bark was used for tanning. It requires cool moist sites, and if out of its natural range can become host to several destructive scale insects. It is one of those trees that is iconic of the northern forests, and often appears as a relic population along north facing stream banks and ravines south of its range, out of place populations left behind by the retreating glaciers ten thousand years ago which have perpetuated themselves in suitable microclimates. There are such relic hemlock groves in unusual settings (New York Botanical Garden along the Bronx River, Mianus River Gorge in Connecticut… that I came to know and love during my long career) but they seem always under attack by pests; insect, animal and human. In the right location and setting the hemlock can be a magnificent landscape tree.
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