Highlights

Although you won’t see any of this size in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve, hemlocks can grow to a height of over 150 feet with trunks over 6 feet in diameter. They grow very slowly and do not produce seed cones until at least 20 years old. Some do not reach maturity and bear cones until over 100 years old. Large specimens can be over 1,000 years old. 

Unfortunately our hemlocks are under extreme stress, many dying, from attacks by the Asian hemlock wooly adelgid. The invasive wooly adelgid is a very serious threat to the continued survival of the hemlock and those species that depend on the hemlock. You’ll find more on the wooly adelgid, below, in this month’s Bioreserve Fauna of the Month.

Eastern hemlocks have short, flat needles, a half inch to an inch long, dark green above with two narrow white lines running the length of the needle’s underside. The needles are attached to their twig by a slender stalk.

Tiny flowers are produced in spring with inch long cones ripening in the fall and releasing seed during the winter. Many winter birds and small forest rodents depend on hemlock seeds as a winter food source.

The eastern hemlock grows best in damp, acidic soil from extreme southern Ontario and Quebec east to Nova Scotia. From Nova Scotia south along the Atlantic coast to New Jersey and then inland following the Appalachian Mountains to extreme northern Georgia and Alabama. To the west, the hemlock range extends south from southern Ontario to eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and then down the western side of the Appalachians.

On the northern edge of their range whitetail deer depend on eastern hemlock for food and/or shelter. Dense stands of hemlock slow the accumulation of winter snow beneath them. When heavy snows, frigid temperatures and strong winds buffet our northern forests small family groups of deer gather at these hemlock stands, called “deer yards,” for shelter, feeding and bedding. Young, dense hemlocks also provide food and shelter for snowshoe hare and various species of forest voles and mice.

A fortifying tea can be made from hemlock needles. And, no, this is not the “hemlock” Socrates drank. Socrates’ death-sentence drink was concocted from poison hemlock, Conium maculatum, an herbaceous plant, not a tree. 

Not that long ago hemlock bark was rendered for tannin, which was widely used for tanning leather prior to the development of various chemical methods which require less labor and are more economically advantageous.

There are numerous insect species that feed on hemlock. Only two of these are capable of killing their host. One of these is the previously mentioned alien hemlock wooly adelgid and the other is the native hemlock borer which preys on weakened hemlocks often killing wooly adelgid compromised trees.

Old eastern hemlocks and hemlock stumps and logs occasionally nurture an interesting and much sought after medicinal fungus. The hemlock varnish shelf polypore, Ganoderma tsugae, is very closely related to the highly valued Asian “miracle” mushroom reishi or ling chi/lingzhi, Ganoderma lucidum.

Both mushroom species contain triterpenes, polysaccharides and sterols and both can be made into a “tea” reportedly containing immunotherapeutic properties, anti-tumor inhibitors and enhancers for anti-viral and antibacterial activity.

One can easily see the eastern hemlock is a species we do not want to lose. Unfortunately, like the American elm, American chestnut and various other native species, that have been extirpated from vast areas of their natural range by introduced insects and diseases, the future is not bright for this grand American tree.

More on the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus)-

The eastern white pine is often thought of as a tree of the far north, but its range barely reaches into southern Canada. In Canada it ranges from the Maritimes and the Gaspé peninsula of Quebec west to Ontario and southeastern Manitoba. In the United States its home range extends from southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa east to the Atlantic coast. Eastern white pine continues south through New England and the Middle Atlantic states south down the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and northwestern South Carolina and then west to Tennessee and Kentucky. 

Eastern white pine is the commonest evergreen conifer (cone bearing tree) in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB). It is also the most valuable local lumber tree.

The eastern white pine can be easily identified by its leaves (needles). The leaves are in bundles of five corresponding to the number of letters that make up the middle name of the tree. “W-h-i-t-e” …which describes the color of its wood …contains five letters. If a New England pine has five needles in a bundle, it is a white pine.

Eastern white pine leaves are a dark green and three to five inches long. Every eighteen months old leaves are shed and replaced by new ones.

In spring eastern white pines produce copious pollen which is dispersed by the wind. Walking through a large eastern white pine grove on a windy spring day can be difficult for people with pine pollen allergies or compromised respiratory systems. 

White pine cones are long and narrow, four to seven inches long. The cone’s overlapping scales open when the seeds are fully ripe and the small seeds wind disperse. In years of abundant cone crops, the SMB red squirrels feed almost exclusively on pine seeds.

Old growth white pines are few and far between. As a valued lumber tree there are few old growth pines remaining. 

White pines are the tallest native New England tree. When Europeans arrived in New England they found white pines as tall as 250 feet. Unfortunately, they cut them all down. 

Many of these early tall and straight pines were branded with a large arrow design as “King’s Pine” by agents of the British Royal Navy. Colonists were forbidden to cut them since these “select” pines were destined for use as masts on English ships.

The tallest eastern white pine in New England, today, is the Jake Swamp Pine in the Mohawk Trail State Forest in Charlemont, Massachusetts. It is 170 feet tall and still growing.

The tallest eastern white pine of them all is the Longfellow Pine at 185 feet. It lives in Cook Forest State Park, Farmington Township, Pennsylvania.

The SMB forest is predominantly oak and pine. With the periodic attacks on the oaks from alien gypsy moth caterpillars, alien winter moth caterpillars and native forest tent caterpillars the weakened oaks are being replaced by eastern white pine which the above mentioned caterpillars do not eat.

Eastern white pine does have its enemies. The white pine weevil and pine blister rust, an alien fungus from Asia, can weaken and kill these pines.

Eastern white pine will grow just about anywhere in the forest, however this species prefers well-drained soil and abundant sunlight. 

White Pine needles are high in vitamin c and can be brewed as “tea.” The inner white bark (cambium) is edible …if you like the taste of pine. Indians would dry and then grind/pulverize the cambium into a “flour.” This flour would be added to soups and stews as a thickener or mixed with other nut and seed flours and made into bread. 

The eastern white pine is the “state flower” of Maine.

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Birdhouse at the Whitehead Preserve with luxuriant old man's beard.