Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens

Tree of the month series - this series of short articles about trees in the Belfast Botanic Gardens is compiled by members of the Friends group and Gardens staff. The series will gradually build up to a comprehensive archive of information about the trees in Belfast Botanic gardens. Each article will illustrate the tree in Belfast together with information from a range of sources elsewhere. Click here for the rest of the trees

Tree of the Month, May 2008

Western Hemlock - Tsuga heterophylla

by Jonathan Pilcher

The hemlocks are frequent forest trees of north America, native from Alaska to California and important timber trees of forestry world-wide. As the species name indicates the most distinctive feature of the western hemlock is the variability of leaf length - a rather untidy mixture of long and short leaves. Also distinctive are the female cones which are red when very small as shown below. The Belfast Botanic Gardens specimen is a young tree on the main path just to the south of the Tropical Ravine.

Hemlock tree in Belfast Botanic gardens	Hemlock showing small cones and variable leaf length
young female cones	young male cone

Photos taken in 2008 in Belfast Botanic Gardens. Copyright Jon Pilcher