Tsuga sieboldii

Southern Japanese hemlock is in the pine or Pinaceae family and is native to the Japanese islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Yakushima.

• Crown is dense, broadly conical and pointed, often multi-stemmed.
• Needle-like leaves are densely set in irregular flat rows. They are broad and stubby in comparison to other species in the genus Tsuga, and they vary in length from 0.7 cm to 2 cm long by about 2 mm wide, blunt with notched tips; base of the petiole is red-brown. Volor is shiny dark green above, with underside of the leaves having two broad, dull white stomatal bands.
• Staminate (male) flowers are terminal on weak shoots, globular and very small in diameter (2 mm), cherry-red in colour. Pistillate (female) flowers are slightly larger at 5 mm, purple in colour and ovoid in shape. Mature seed cones are ovoid-conic, deep dark brown, pendulous.
• Buds are narrow based and ovoid, dark orange in colour; scales are convex; bark is a dark pink-grey in colour, smooth with horizontal folds when the tree is young, but later cracks into squares and becomes flaky.