| General Description | A low-maintenance dwarf hemlock with attractive silver-white variegated green foliage and is a slow grower; it can grow up to 1.5 m tall.
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| ID Characteristic | Needled evergreen with dense pyramidal growth habits. Needles at the branch tips are silver-white which gives it an appearance of snow covering the shrub.
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| Shape | A dense, globed shape up to 1.5 m tall. |
| Landscape | An excellent accent shrub that can be used in mass planting, hedges, screenings, or just general garden use.
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| Propagation | Capable of being propagated by seed or semi-ripe cuttings. Seeds should be propagated in the spring and should be stratified for two months at freezing or slightly above freezing to ensure good germination. They should not be planted in spring or summer, or they will not germinate. Semi-ripe cuttings can be harvested in late autumn or winter, and then you want to use bottom heat to heat the rooting medium.
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| Cultivation | Grows best in medium moisture with well-drained soils in part shade to full shade. It needs a sheltered location protected from strong drying winds and hot afternoon sun.
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| Pests | Potential disease problems like needle blight, canker, and rots. Other threats include bagworms, borer, leaf miners, hemlock sawflies and spider mites. Foliage also may scorch in very hot weather.
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| Notable Specimens | A specimen is located at Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
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| Habitat | Horticultural origin.
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| Bark/Stem Description | Multi-stemmed shrub with brown furrows and scaly bark on young plants. This shrub has a high tannin content. It has a thick ridged bark that is red-brown to gray-brown on mature trees (Dirr, 2009, p. 1160).
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| Flower/Leaf Bud Description | Has spherical shape with fuzzy scales in a light brown colour that is 2 mm in size (Dirr, 2009, p. 1160).
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| Leaf Description | Needles at the branch tips are silver-white, giving the shrub an appearance of being covered in snow. Inner parts of the needle are a dark green that is about 1.27 cm long with two whitish bands underneath the needles.
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| Flower Description | Has a monoecious system that has a light yellow staminate and a pale green pistillate (Dirr, 2009, p. 1161).
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| Fruit Description | Produces light brown thimble-like cones about 1.9 cm long and appear on older plants.
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| Colour Description | Foliage is white-variegated green foliage that comes out a creamy white during the spring, and the tips turn whiter in the summer. Then in the autumn and winter months, it is more of a creamy hue. Branches are red-brown to grey-brown in colour.
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| Texture Description | Foliage has a soft and fine texture (Dirr, 2009, p. 1160).
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