Mountain hemlock

Leaves

Form

• Rounded in cross-section, blunt-tipped
• Needles crowded, spreading around the twig, especially on upper side

Length

• 20–30 mm

Colour

• Both surfaces dark bluish-green with faint lines of white dots

Buds

Form

• Ovoid
• Outer scales with narrow, pointed tips

Length

• 5 mm

Colour

• Reddish-brown

Twigs

Form

• Slender to stoutish, hairy
• Side branches of unequal length, forming a tufted spray

Colour

• Reddish-brown

Seed cones (mature)

Form

• Oblong cylindrical

Length

• 30–80 mm

Colour

• Purplish-brown

Structure

• Scales thickened, broad, fan-shaped
• Margins slightly roughened or toothed

Timing

• Open in autumn, spreading very widely
• During winter becoming bent back toward the cone base after the seeds have been shed
• Cones fall off during the spring or early summer

Seedlings

Form

• Seeds germinate in spring, even on snow

Bark

Form

• Scaly
• Divided into hard, narrow, flat-topped ridges

Colour

• Dark reddish-brown

Wood

Texture

• Moderately light
  
• Relatively hard and strong

Colour

• Heartwood light reddish-brown

Morphology

• Heartwood not sharply distinct from the sapwood
• Fine-grained

Size

Height

• Usually to 15 m, occasionally 45 m on exceptional sites

Diameter

• To 50 cm

Maximum age

• Several hundred years old

Tree form

Forest-grown

Trunk

• At lower elevations, trunk strongly tapered, bearing slender branches with upturned tips, almost to the ground

Crown

• Narrowly conical, becoming irregular and bent or twisted on old trees
• Leading shoot oblique

Root system

• Shallow, wide-spreading

Habitat

Site

• Coastal and interior subalpine forests
• Grows best on deep moist soils on north slopes
• In wetter areas of the subalpine forest at elevations of 750–1800 m
• On exposed ridges at high elevations, a low-spreading shrub

Light tolerance

• Seedlings grow best in partial shade

Associated species

• In pure stands or mixed with subalpine fir, amabilis fir, Engelmann spruce, subalpine larch, whitebark pine, and lodgepole pine

Range

Coastal and interior northern British Columbia and Alaska