Virginia Tech Dendrology

Chinese hemlock Pinaceae Tsuga chinensis (Franch.) Pritzel ex Diels. symbol: --
Leaf: Evergreen, flattened, single needles, to 1 inch long, margins entire, tips rounded, with distinct petioles; yellow-green to dark green and shiny above with two gray-green stomatal bands below; spirally arranged (but somewhat 2-ranked).
Flower: Species is monoecious; male cones are tiny, yellow, and occur axillary on previous year's growth; female cones are tiny, purple, and terminal.
Fruit: Small, woody, egg-shaped cones (about 1 inch long) with numerous thin, imbricate scales; pendent, sessile, and terminal; reddish brown; mature in one season, abundant.
Twig: Slender, flexible, pubescent, yellow or gray-brown; bud scales keeled.
Bark: Young bark is thin, superficially scaly, and brown to black; on mature trees bark is thin (about 1 inch) with flattened ridges; inner bark is dark red streaked with purple.
Form: A large evergreen conifer that reaches 165 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter, mature trees have a pyramidal crown and lacy foliage that droops at the terminal ends.
Looks like: eastern hemlock - western hemlock

Additional Range Information: Tsuga chinensis is planted in the USDA hardiness zones shown above and is not known to widely escape cultivaton. Download the full-size PDF map.

All material © 2021 Virginia Tech Dept. of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation; Photos and text by: John Seiler, Edward Jensen, Alex Niemiera, and John Peterson; Silvics reprinted from Ag Handbook 654; range map source information