Tsuga sieboldii, also called the Southern Japanese Hemlock, or in Japanese, simply Tsuga (栂), is a conifer native to the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese islands of Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

, Shikoku

Shikoku

is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...

 and Yakushima

Yakushima

, one of the Ōsumi Islands, is an island of about 500 km² and roughly 15,000 islanders to the south of Kyūshū in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The Vincennes Strait separates it from Tanegashima. The highest point on the island is Miyanoura-dake at 1,935 metres...

. In Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 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

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

 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

Shoot

Shoots are new plant growth, they can include stems, flowering stems with flower buds, and leaves. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop...

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

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

 is red-brown. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are densely set in irregular flat rows. They are broad and stubby in comparison to other species of the genus Tsuga

Tsuga

Tsuga is a genus of conifers in the family Pinaceae. The common name hemlock is derived from a perceived similarity in the smell of its crushed foliage to that of the unrelated plant poison hemlock....

, and they vary in length from 0.7 cm to 2 cm long by about 0.2 cm 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 are narrow based and ovoid, dark orange in colour. Their scales are convex.

The stamenate (i.e. male) flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are terminal on weak shoots. They are very small at only 2 mm, globular in shape and cherry-red in colour. The pistillate flowers are slightly larger at 5 mm, purple in colour and nodding ovoid in shape. The deep dark brown cone

Conifer cone

A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity...

s are pendulous and ovoid-conic in shape. The tips are blunt and they measure about 2.3 cm long by 1.3 cm wide. Their scales are flat topped.