Leaves retuse or often emarginate at apex, dark green, lustrous and conspicuously grooved on the upper surface, marked on the lower surface by a band of 7 or 8 rows of stomata on each side of the midrib, ⅓′—¾′ long, about 1/12′ wide, deciduous from the orange-red bases during their fifth year. Flowers: male tinged with purple; female purple, with broadly ovate bracts, scarious and erose on the margins and about as long as their scales. Fruit on short stout stalks, oblong, 1′—1½′ long, with narrow-oval scales gradually narrowed and rounded at apex, rather abruptly contracted at base into distinct stipes, thin, concave, puberulous on the outer surface, twice as long as their broad pale bracts, spreading nearly at right angles to the axis of the cone at maturity, their bracts rather longer than wide, wedge-shaped, pale, nearly truncate or slightly pointed at the broad apex; seeds ⅙′ long, with numerous small oil-vesicles on the lower side, and one quarter as long as the pale lustrous wings broad or narrow at the base and narrowed to the rounded apex. A tree, usually 40°—50°, or occasionally 70° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 2° in diameter, short stout often pendulous branches forming a handsome compact pyramidal head, and slender light orange-brown pubescent branchlets, usually becoming glabrous and dull brown more or less tinged with orange during their third year. Winter-buds obtuse, dark chestnut-brown, pubescent, nearly ⅛′ long. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1¼′ thick, red-brown, and deeply divided into broad flat connected ridges covered with thin closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, pale brown tinged with red, with thin nearly white sapwood. Distribution. Rocky banks of streams usually at elevations between 2500° and 3000° on the Blue Ridge from southwestern Virginia to northern Georgia, generally singly or in small scattered groves of a few individuals. Occasionally planted as an ornamental tree in the northern states, and in western Europe. 3. Tsuga heterophylla Sarg. Hemlock. [Illustration: Fig. 48] Leaves rounded at apex, conspicuously grooved, dark green and very lustrous on the upper surface, marked below by broad white bands of 7—9 rows of stomata, abruptly contracted at the base into slender petioles, ¼′—¾′ long and 1/16′—1/12′ wide, mostly persistent 4—7 years. Flowers: male yellow; female purple and puberulous, with broad bracts gradually narrowed to an obtuse point and shorter than their broadly ovate slightly scarious scales. Fruit oblong-ovoid, acute, sessile, ¾′—1′ long, with slightly puberulous oval scales, often abruptly narrowed near the middle, and dark purple puberulous bracts rounded and abruptly contracted at apex; seeds ⅛′ long, furnished with occasional oil-vesicles, one third to one half as long as their narrow wings.