Eastern Hemlock Traditional Cache

Eastern Hemlock may be in trouble. So far this example is magnificent. It's a short walk along an unmarked trail, beyond the orange trail in the R. Park FLLT Preserve.

Tsuga canadensis, also known as eastern hemlock,^[2] eastern hemlock-spruce^[3] or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as pruche du Canada, is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It is the state tree of Pennsylvania

The eastern hemlock grows well in shade and is very long lived, with the oldest recorded specimen, found in Tionesta, Pennsylvania, being at least 554 years old.^[5] The tree generally reaches heights of about 31 meters (102 feet),^[4] but exceptional trees have been recorded up to 53 metres (174 feet)

The diameter of the trunk at breast height is often 1.5 metres (4.9 feet), but again, outstanding trees have been recorded up to 1.75 meters (5.7 feet).^[7] The trunk is usually straight and monopodial, but very rarely is forked

The worrysome culprit is the       Hemlock woolly adelgid

The species is currently threatened by the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), a sap-sucking bug accidentally introduced from East Asia to the United States in 1924, and first found in the native range of eastern hemlock in the late 1960s.

The adelgid has spread very rapidly in southern parts of the range once becoming established, while its expansion northward is much slower.^{[citation needed]} Virtually all the hemlocks in the southern Appalachian Mountains have seen infestations of the insect within the last five to seven years, with thousands of hectares of stands dying within the last two to three years.^{[citation needed]} Attempts to save representative examples on both public and private lands are on-going. A project named "Tsuga Search", funded by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is being conducted to save the largest and tallest remaining eastern hemlocks in the Park. It is through Tsuga Search that hemlocks have been found with trunk volumes of up to 44.8 m³ within the Park,^[13] making it the largest eastern evergreen conifer, eclipsing in volume both eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda). The tree is currently listed as a least concern species in the IUCN Red List, but this is based largely on its wide distribution and because the adelgid populations have not reached the northern areas of its range.

While putting out geocaches in the Ellis Hollow Preserve I several times met up with researchers from Ontario Canada, who, in connection with Cornell, were studying a hemlock pest. I now realize what they are about. They have left blue plastic ribbons on some of the Hemlocks in the E.H. Preserve.

In a 2009 case study, entomologists from the U.S. Forest Service, Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst released 900 Laricobius nigrinus beetles into a stand of adelgid-infested hemlocks near Lansing, New York. L. nigrinus, which is native to the Pacific Northwest, naturally preys on the hemlock wooly adelgid. The particular site near Lansing was chosen because its hemlocks are only lightly infested with the woolly adelgid, and there are enough trees to sustain a long-term study. The site will be left untreated with pesticides for 10 years to study how well the L. nigrinus beetles become established; if the experiment proves successful, researchers expect the population will take two to three years to build to levels where they can be readily detected.

The cache is a camoed "micro" pill bottle with a snap on lid. An arrow points to where to push it open. Please make sure it's tight all around when you are done. The cache is tied in and holds only a rolled log with a rubber band and a tiny zip lock bag. Please BYOP and put the rubber band on your finger before it jumps away from you. You'll need it after you have rolled the log tight again! Then it will fit easily in the plastic bag and the cache. No tweezers, please, they kill the plastic.