Seeking Tsuga chinensis seed

The Chinese variety resists a pest devastating North American trees.

Cones of the Chinese hemlock, Tsuga chinensis
Photograph by Wang Kang

 

Hunting a Hardy Hemlock

Toward the end of the first day of the 2017 NACPEC expedition to Sichuan, the collectors saw evergreens from across a reservoir that they thought might be Chinese hemlock (Tsuga chinensis). Until the 1980s, specimens of this tree growing in the West could all be traced to a single E.H. Wilson introduction. In the 1990s, the species demonstrated resistance to an adelgid that had begun wiping out hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) along the east coast of North America (see “A Hemlock Farewell,” July-August 2014, page 8), making it a priority to acquire more of the Chinese variety.

Upon closer inspection, although there were three or four hemlocks, just one had cones, and only on a single branch that grew beyond a slope ending in a precipice that dropped 50 feet to the river below. The next thing I knew, I was up the tree with a handsaw—7,500 miles from home and hours from the nearest hospital—swept up in the thrill of the hunt. When half cut, the heavy branch swung slowly down within Andrew Gapinski’s reach, but just as the green fronds began to settle gently into the side of the slope, the limb snapped. For a few precarious seconds, the freed butt balanced, perfectly vertical, with the heavy cut end up. And then it wavered, teetering toward the river. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,” yelled Gapinski. The heavy butt, if it somersaulted, would pull the limb into the river—and all the cones with it.

And then somehow, as if defying physics, the butt slowly eased back past vertical toward the tree. Below, Gapinski grabbed a branch and yelled, “Got it.”

The next time I was gripped by tree-climbing fever, when the stakes were much higher, collecting seed from a rare beech (see main text), we took no chances—the limb was roped in.

Read more articles by Jonathan Shaw

You might also like

A Paper House in Massachusetts

The 1920s Rockport cottage reflects resourceful ingenuity.

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

Most popular

Harvard Research Funding Cuts Are Illegal, Judge Rules

The Trump administration violated the University’s First Amendment rights and must restore all funding, the court said.

Five Questions with Javier Ortega-Hernández

A professor of evolutionary biology on what shaped life more than 500 million years ago

In Sermon, Garber Urges Harvard Community to ‘Defend and Protect’ Institutions

Harvard’s president uses traditional Memorial Church address to encourage divergent views.

Explore More From Current Issue

Two people moving large abstract painting with blue V-shaped design in museum courtyard.

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

Catherine Zipf smiling, wearing striped shirt and dark sweater outdoors.

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

James Muller in white lab coat leaning on railing in hospital hallway.

Free Speech, the Bomb—and Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war