Tsuga sieboldii

Carrière 1855

Common names

Southern Japanese hemlock; ツガ tsuga, Toga matsu [Japanese].

Taxonomic notes

Synonymy:

• Abies tsuga Siebold et Zuccarini 1842;
• Pinus tsuga (Sieb. et Zucc.) Antoine 1846;
• Tsuga tsuja (Sieb. et Zucc.) A. Murray bis 1862;
• Pinus sieboldii (Carr.) W.R. McNab 1876;
• Pinus araragi Siebold 1826, nom. nud.;
• Tsuga araragi (Siebold) Koehne 1893, nom. inval..

Description

Trees to 30 m tall and 250 cm dbh, with a usually single, straight or curved trunk and a broadly conical crown becoming irregular and often flat-topped with age. Bark dark gray, rough, scaly, forming quadrangular plates. Branchlets light grown, grey with age, barely grooved between decurrent pulvini, glabrous. Leaves of unequal length: above shoot parted, assurgent; otherwise pectinate, 10-15 × 2-2.5 mm, widest near blunt or emarginate apex, flattened, grooved above, stomata in two bands below, light green. Pollen cones 3-5 mm, crowded together, yellow. Seed cones borne on outer branches throughout crown, sessile, globose when open, (16-)20-25(-30) mm long, 14-20 mm wide, green ripening to pale brown, scales nearly round, 8-12 mm diameter; seeds 2-3 × 1.5 mm with on oblong wing 5-6 × 3 mm, light brown, tranparent (Farjon (2010).

Distribution and Ecology

Japan: S Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Yakushima (Farjon 1990), at 500-1500 m elevation. Soils various, silicic; climate moist temperate, maritime, 1000-2000 mm annual precipitation. Commonly grows in mixed conifer forest; typical associates include Abies firma, Pseudotsuga japonica, Chamaecyparis obtusa, Cryptomeria japonica, Pinus densiflora, Pinus parviflora, and Sciadopitys verticillata; rarely in pure stands (Farjon (2010). Hardy to Zone 6 (cold hardiness limit between -23.2°C and -17.8°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001).

Big tree

Oldest

Suzuki (1997) studied this species on Yakushima Island. He cites his own previous work (Suzuki and Tsukahara 1987) in having found a tree stump with 794 rings on Yakushima. He also cites other previous workers as having derived ring-counted ages of 685 years on Ullung Do Island, Korea (37.500°N, 130.833°E), and 639 years on Mt. Oninome, Miyazaki, Japan (32.700°N, 131.533°E).

Dendrochronology

I can find (1999.02) only two studies, both dealing with tree demography (Suzuki 1980, Suzuki and Susukida 1989).

Ethnobotany

Less common and less widely used than Tsuga diversifolia, but still used for construction, carpentry, and furniture making. A popular ornamental in Japan, it is much less common in Europe and North America (Farjon (2010).

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Suzuki E. 1980. Regeneration of Tsuga sieboldii forest II. Two cases of regeneration occurred about 260 and 50 years ago. Japanese Journal of Ecology 30: 333-346 [in Japanese with English summary].

Suzuki E. and Tsukahara J. 1987. Age structure and regeneration of old growth Cryptomeria japonica forests on Yakushima Island. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 100:223-241.

Suzuki E. and Susukida J. 1989. Age structure and regeneration process of temperate coniferous stands in the Segire River basin, Yakushima Island. Japanese Journal of Ecology 39: 45-51 [in Japanese with English summary].

Suzuki Eizi. 1997. The dynamics of old Cryptomeria japonica forest on Yakushima Island. Tropics 6(4):421-428.

See also

Wilson, E.H. 1916. The conifers and taxads of Japan. Publ. Arnold Arbor. 8, Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Yamanaka, T. 1975. Ecology of Pseudotsuga japonica and other coniferous forests in eastern Shikoku. Mem. Nat. Sci. Mus. 8. Tokyo.