In the region of Tataka, there is a famous Taiwan Hemlock at almost 500 years old and all visitors would pass it if taking the Tataka Trail for hiking. The Taiwan Hemlock is an ever-green tree under Pinaceae Family, Tsuga Genus. With the flat canopy layer, its branches extend outwards horizontally like the shape of a large beautiful umbrella trimmed manually, which presents elegance and allows the tree towering among mountain valleys. The bark often peels off in cloud-like pieces; every year, new shoots approximately emerge in April, and blooming starts between May and June. The female cone in a purplish-blue color is very eye-catching and turns into a seed cone after maturity, which then turns into brown color. The Taiwan Hemlock grows at an altitude of 2100-3000m and this overlaps with Taiwan Spruce. Tataka happens to be located in a region of a mixture with Taiwan Hemlock and Taiwan Spruce. From research of almost 20 years, it has been discovered that the distribution of Taiwan Hemlock tends to tilt towards the Taiwan White Fir forest; the reasons are to be explored and discovered by scientists. The species is one of the coniferous trees produced in Taiwan with the toughest hardness, which can be used for manufacturing furniture, paper and sleeper. In the early days, Taiwan Hemlock was also used to build rice mill for farmers.
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