Tsuga mertensiana

Tsuga mertensiana is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 20–40 m—60–120 feet tall, with exceptional specimens at 59 m-180 feet tall. They have a trunk diameter of up to 2 m-6 feet. The bark is thin and square-cracked or furrowed, and gray in color. The crown is a neat slender conic shape in young trees with a tilted or drooping lead shoot, becoming cylindric in older trees. At all ages, it is distinguished by the slightly pendulous branchlet tips. The shoots are orange-brown, with dense pubescence about 1 mm long. The leaves are needle-like, 7–25 mm long and 1–1.5 mm broad, soft, blunt-tipped, only slightly flattened in cross-section, pale glaucous blue-green above, and with two broad bands of bluish-white stomata below with only a narrow green midrib between the bands; they differ from those of any other species of hemlock in also having stomata on the upper surface, and are arranged spirally all round the shoot.

Tsuga mertensiana (Mountain Hemlock) is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern Tulare County, California. More

Tsuga mertensiana, a gymnosperm, is a tree that is native to California and is also found elsewhere in North America and beyond. More

Tsuga mertensiana - Leaf - mountain hemlock (c) 2005 Steven J. More