Majestic Hemlocks

Ten species of hemlock tree exist worldwide, with four of those species native to North America (NA). The eastern United States is home to two of the native NA species, Canadian or eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana).

Eastern hemlock’s range expands from the northern Georgia mountains and Alabama northward to Canada. Eastern hemlock tends to thrive in moist, protected cove forests and riparian (associated with rivers and streams) zone environments. It grows on northern or eastern elevated slopes ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 feet as well. Additionally, Carolina hemlocks grow as dispersed populations of fewer trees along the Appalachian Mountains of northeast Georgia, western North Carolina, northwest South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southwest Virginia. In South Carolina, eastern hemlock occurs in northern Oconee, Pickens, and Greenville counties along with isolated stands of Carolina hemlock. Unlike eastern hemlock, Carolina hemlock thrives on drier montane (mountainous) sites.

Though harvested as a timber species during the early settlements of colonial America, hemlock’s popularity eventually gave way to the use of the bark as a tanning agent for leather. The mountains of South Carolina still hold the randomly preserved hemlock log, stripped of its bark and left to decay.

But if hemlock is not a commercially important timber species today, and the tanning industry no longer relies on the bark, then why are both eastern and Carolina hemlock still of interest or value?

Eastern hemlock trees are often considered keystone species in a plant community. This means that other species within the given ecosystem rely heavily on these species. Eastern hemlocks can live upwards of 800