Northern Japanese hemlock

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Northern Japanese hemlock
Northern Japanese hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia)

Northern Japanese hemlock ( Tsuga diversifolia )

Systematics
Class : Coniferopsida
Order : Conifers (Coniferales)
Family : Pine family (Pinaceae)
Subfamily : Abietoideae
Genre : Hemlocks ( Tsuga )
Type : Northern Japanese hemlock
Scientific name
Tsuga diversifolia
( Max. ) Mast.
Branch with needles
Branch with cones in the snow

The northern Japanese hemlock ( Tsuga diversifolia ) is a conifer of the hemlock genus . Their distribution area is on the Japanese islands.

description

The northern Japanese hemlock is a tree up to about 20 meters, a maximum of 26 meters high , but in cultivation it often grows shrub-like . The trunk reaches a diameter of 130 centimeters at chest height and has a flat, longitudinally fissured scale bark. The crown is conical, the branches are horizontal and are densely branched, the top shoot is overhanging. Young twigs are yellow to red-brown and have short hairs. The dark brown and obovate winter buds are 3 millimeters.

The entire needles are tight, screwy and parted on the branches. They are unequal in size, 5 to 10 millimeters long and 2.0 to 2.5 millimeters wide and widen towards the tip. The upper side is very shiny, dark green and furrowed, the underside shows two chalk-white stomata opening strips , the needle point is clearly notched. The needles stay on the tree for five to six years.

The male flowers are yellow, almost spherical, 3 to 5 millimeters in size and are located in the leaf axils. The female inflorescences are dull purple, egg-shaped and 5 millimeters long. They appear at the ends of short branches. The ripe cones are dark brown, drooping, about 2 inches long, 1.5 to 2.3 inches wide and broadly ovate to spherical. They are very short stalked, so almost sitting. The cone scales are shiny, slightly edged and round-egg-shaped. The seeds are 3 millimeters long and have wings almost twice as long. Flowering time is May, the seeds ripen from September to October.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 24.

Distribution and ecology

The range of the species is on the Japanese islands Honshu , Shikoku and Kyushu .

The northern Japanese hemlock grows in rainy mountain forests and other alpine areas at altitudes of 700 to 2000 meters on fresh to moist, acidic to neutral, sandy-humic, sandy-gravelly or rocky, shallow soils . You can find them in sunny to shady locations, cool in summer and cold in winter. It is frost hardy . Similar to most other hemlock species, however, it needs shade or partial shade as a young tree.

It forms large pure stands or grows together with Veitch's fir ( Abies veitchii ), the Japanese larch ( Larix kaempferi ) and the Hiba tree of life ( Thujopsis dolabrata ).

Systematics and taxonomy

The northern Japanese hemlock ( Tsuga diversifolia ) is a type of species of hemlock ( Tsuga ). There it is assigned to the subgenus Tsuga . It was first described in 1867 by the German-Russian botanist Karl Johann Maximowicz as Abies diversifolia ( Basionym ). The English botanist Maxwell Tylden Masters placed them in the genus Tsuga in 1881 . Under the synonym Tsuga Sieboldii var. Nana, it is also seen as a variety of the southern Japanese hemlock .

The specific epithet diversifolia comes from Latin and means "different leaves".

Tsuga diversifolia (Maxim.) Mast. has the following synonyms: Abies diversifolia Maxim. , Pinus araragi var. Diversifolia (Maxim.) Voss , Tsuga blaringhemii Flous , Tsuga diversifolia subsp. blaringhemii (flous) AEMurray , Abies tsuga var. nana Endl.

use

The wood of the northern Japanese hemlock is rarely used. However, the species has a high ornamental value and is hardy in Central Europe. It was introduced to Europe in 1861 by botanist John Gould Veitch .

proof

literature

  • Andreas Roloff, Andreas Bärtels: Flora of the woods. Purpose, properties and use . 3rd, corrected edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2008, ISBN 978-3-8001-5614-6 , pp. 792 .
  • Peter Schütt , Hans Joachim Schuck, Bernd Stimm (eds.): Lexicon of tree and shrub species. The standard work of forest botany. Morphology, pathology, ecology and systematics of important tree and shrub species . Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-53-8 , pp. 535 (reprinted 1992).
  • Ulrich Hecker: Trees and Bushes . FSVO manual. BLV Buchverlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8354-0021-5 , p. 111 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Roloff et al .: Flora der Gehölze , p. 792
  2. ↑ a b c d Schütt et al .: Lexicon of Tree and Shrub Species, p. 535
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Hecker: Trees and Bushes , p. 111
  4. ^ Tropicos. [1]
  5. ↑ Christopher J. Earle: Tsuga diversifolia. In: The Gymnosperm Database. Retrieved May 28, 2011 .
  6. ↑ Christopher J. Earle: Tsuga. In: The Gymnosperm Database. Retrieved May 28, 2011 .
  7. ↑ Abies diversifolia. In: Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). United States Department of Agriculture, accessed June 24, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Tsuga diversifolia. In: Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). United States Department of Agriculture, accessed May 28, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Tsuga. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved April 11, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Northern Japanese Hemlock  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files