In my previous life as a city dweller, I would never have known to search for hemlock trees in Massachusetts. I moved from the mountain west directly into an area with a highly dense population and little native forest cover. With the pandemic, there seems to have been a renewed interest in the outdoors and native ecosystems, and many people living in the city now may learn about the incredible hemlock trees, but are none the wiser on where in the world to find one in a dense metro such as that of Boston. It’s even more difficult to find them in the region since the topography has been altered dramatically by human intervention, eliminating the scant locations in which hemlocks may thrive. Having explored many different nature reserves and parks in the area, I currently know of two locations within the I95 highway belt around Boston where hemlocks can be observed: Virginia Wood in the Middlesex Fells and Hemlock Gorge in Newton.

Hemlock Gorge maintains a unique topology that favors hemlock trees. This small gorge creates a northeastern facing slope that hemlocks still manage to dominate as the overhead species. However, I didn’t see too many young hemlocks in the understory. They particularly thrive in cool and wet areas, and it’s possible that the urban development around the area has warmed the microclimate, allowing other species to begin overtaking the hemlocks. Additionally, hemlock deaths due to the hemlock woody adelgid infestation may have created even more opportunities for other tree species to take root and thrive here.

In the northwestern area of the park, the hardened sweet birch dominates. Similar to the Hemlock, Sweet birch also prefers moist soils and tends to live on cooler, northern facing slopes. At least one specimen was old enough to showcase the rarely seen cracked bark characteristic of older trees. Trees typically don’t begin to develop this cracked appearance until at least 70 to 80 years of age. The other sweet birches in the area were significantly smaller and had much smoother bark, perhaps individuals that quickly took advantage of a canopy opening as many birches do. The cool, moist nature of this environment also makes fire unlikely, to which sweet birch is particularly susceptible.

At the highest point of the park overlooking the gorge and to the west of the main bridge attraction, white pines dominate. They tend to thrive on virtually any soil type in the area and are prolific seeders in disturbed areas. They also can have an advantage growing on very nutrient poor, rocky soils, which I suspect may be the case here.

The last species found was the American Beech, which was found in many areas throughout the park, but some older specimens were found in the northwestern area of the park, just southwest of the sweet birch stands. Most of the younger beech trees were suffering from beech bark disease, though given the time of year I couldn’t verify whether they also suffered from beech leaf disease. The beeches that exhibited marcescence, or winter leaf retention, had no obvious signs of the disease. The oldest individuals were the target of many word carvings done by passerby over the years, often the most carved into tree because of their incredibly smooth bark.

Hemlock Gorge is accessible via a parking lot on the northeastern side of the park. However, some people who probably live in the area seem to use this lot to store extra vehicles, so parking may be limited. Alternatively, city-dwellers can take the Green Line from Boston to Eliot Station, but a 20 minute walk to the park from there is required. I was there on a very cold winter day, but even then the park’s popularity was apparent and I encountered a few groups of people and individuals enjoying the park.