''Tsuga sieboldii'', also called the southern Japanese hemlock, or in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, simply tsuga (栂), is a conifer native to the Japanese islands of Honshū, Kyūshū, Shikoku and

Yakushima , native_name_link = , image_caption = Landsat image of Yakushima , image_size = , nickname = , location = East China Sea , coordinates = , map = Japan#Japan Kagoshima Prefecture , map_relief ...

. In Europe and North America the tree is sometimes used as an ornamental and has been in cultivation since 1861.

Description

The tree is often multiple-stemmed from the base and the dense crown is broadly conical and pointed. The

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, e ...

is a dark pink-grey in colour. It is smooth with horizontal folds when the tree is young, but later cracks into squares and become flaky. The glabrous

shoot In botany, a plant shoot consists of any plant stem together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the spr ...

s are a pale shining buff, but they may vary to white or pale brown. The base of the petiole is red-brown. The

leaves A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

are densely set in irregular flat rows. They are broad and stubby in comparison to other species of the genus '' Tsuga'', and they vary in length from long by about wide. They are blunt with notched tips and shiny dark green above. The underside of the leaves has two broad, dull white stomatal bands. The

buds In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of a stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be speci ...

are narrow based and ovoid, dark orange in colour. Their scales are convex. The staminate (i.e. male) flowers are terminal on weak shoots. They are very small at only , globular in shape and cherry-red in colour. The pistillate flowers are slightly larger at , purple in colour and nodding ovoid in shape. The deep dark brown

cone A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

s are pendulous and ovoid-conic in shape. The tips are blunt and they measure about 2.3 cm long by wide. Their scales are flat topped.

References

{{Authority control sieboldii Trees of Japan Endemic flora of Japan Taxa named by Élie-Abel Carrière