comstock] EVERGREENS 3 



THE LARCH OR TAMARACK 



The larches are most graceful and beautiful trees forming slender 

 pyramids often one hundred feet in height. Our native species 

 seems to thrive in the high, cold swamps, and may be found in 

 quantities about the margins of our Adirondack lakes. It has many, 

 long tough, fibrous roots which especially fit it for life in swampy 

 ground. The larch spray is exceedingly beautiful, as the leaves are 

 attached in whorls to little knobs along the the side of a branch. In 

 the European larch, which is commonly planted as an ornamental 

 tree there may be forty or fifty of the needle-like leaves attached to 

 each one of these knobs, which is really a twig shortened to about 

 one-eighth of an inch ; the spray thus has a tufted appearance, each 

 long, terminal twig looking as if it were decorated with fluffy tassels. 

 In the autumn the leaves turn a dull "old-gold " and fall to the 

 ground, which is a very unusual performance on the part of the 

 leaves of a cone-bearing tree. 



Lesson on the Larch or Tamarack — Describe or figure the cones, giving size, 

 color and shape. Do they grow at the tip or along the sides of the branches? 

 Do they stand up or hang down? What is the special value of the tamarack 

 wood? Why is it used for water pipes? What does Longfellow say about the 

 larch in Hiawatha? If you have ever been in a tamarack swamp describe it. 



PINES 



Among all of our tree friends the pines are the most companion- 

 able, for they are the only ones which habitually condescend to con- 

 versation. I have several friends among the pines, and each has its 

 own tone of voice and tells a different story ; and one rarely speaks 

 at all. Aside from being friendly trees, the pines are most interesting 

 as subjects of study. The arrangement of their tasseled leaves, and 

 their mathematically tessellated cones, their whorled branches and 

 mighty roots spreading far on each side, afford inviting subjects for 

 study. If we live in a land where stump fences abound then we 

 have excellent opportunities for studying the great underground sys- 

 tem of these splendid trees. The pines require at least two seasons 

 for maturing their cones, differing in this respect from the other ever- 

 greens. 



There are in the Eastern United States nine very common native 

 species of pines and two European species which are commonly planted. 

 Our native species are : The Labrador or gray : the Canadian or red 

 ( Pinus resinosa); the white (P. Strobus) : the pitch or torch (P. rigida) ; 



