For millennia, eastern hemlock trees have held irreplaceable cultural value and created unique forest habitat across New England. Today, eastern hemlocks are disappearing from our forests, falling by the tens of thousands as prey to an exotic insect foe.
In the new book Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge, eight Harvard Forest researchers reflect on eastern hemlock’s irreplaceable value to human culture, ecosystems, and scientific research.
This free panel discussion, to be held Tuesday, May 20 beginning at 6 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, featuring two of the book’s authors, Harvard Forest director David R. Foster and ecologist Aaron Ellison (recent speaker at The Garden Club of the Back Bay February meeting,) will explain connections between eastern hemlock’s modern decline and the larger challenges facing nature and society in an era of habitat fragmentation, native species loss, and global climate change.
