CONIFERS. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



9 



along the Dease River and along the upper Liard and Frances Rivers, and northward nearly to Finlayson 

 Lake, reaching 65° 35' north/ Southward it spreads through Canada^ and the northern states to 

 northern Pennsylvania,^ northern Indiana and Illinois and central Minnesota, and to about latitude 53° 

 north in Alberta on the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains.* Of the trees of the subarctic 

 forest of America, Larix Americana best supports the rigors of the boreal climate, and at the extreme 

 northern limits of the forest is still a little tree rising above its associate, the Black Spruce, which 

 clings to the ground with nearly prostrate stems. In the interior of Labrador,^ where it is the largest 

 tree, it is surpassed in numbers only by the Black Spruce, and grows in all the cold swamps, and in the 

 southern part of the peninsula occurs occasionally on well-drained benches a few feet above the surface 

 of rivers.^ It grows near the western shore of Hudson Bay with the White Spruce as far north as the 

 mouth of Little Seal River, and northwest up to the very margin of the barren lands, the great rolling 

 grass-covered plains which stretch beyond the subarctic forest to the shores of the Arctic Sea, 

 extending down the Telzoa River as far north as Doobaunt Lake and down the Kazan nearly to Yath- 

 kyed Lake, where it attains a larger size than its companion, the Black Spruce."^ West of the Rocky 

 Mountains, where it is usually associated with the Black Spruce, it is abundant in cool swamps and on 

 northern slopes ; it is common in swamps in Saskatchewan, through which it crosses from the eastern 

 base of the Rocky Mountains to Manitoba, where it finds the southwestern limit of its range near 

 Carberry, southwest of Lake Manitoba,^ and probably attains its largest size north of Lake Winnipeg 

 on low benches which it occasionally covers with open forests. In the maritime provinces of Canada 

 and in the United States it inhabits cold deep swamps, which it often clothes with forests of closely 

 crowded trees rarely more than forty or fifty feet in height. 



The wood of Larix Americana is heavy, hard, very strong, rather coarse-grained, compact, and 

 very durable in contact with the soil ; it is light brown, with thin nearly white sapwood, and contains 

 broad very resinous dark-colored bands of summer cells, few obscure resin passages, and numerous 

 hardly distinguishable medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0,6236, a 

 cubic foot weighing 38.86 pounds. It is largely used for the upper knees of vessels, for ship timbers, 

 fence-posts, telegraph-poles, and railway-ties. 



Although Larix Americana is said to have been cultivated by Philip Miller, in the Physic 



Histoire 



Nouvelle 



10 



known 



New England, as Josselyn described its merits soon after the middle of the seventeenth century." 



Americana, which here grows to a height of six or eight feet, with 



a trunk an inch in diameter, extends in smaU open groves above 



the Spruces and up to elevations of twelve hundred feet above the 



level of the sea. (See McConnell, Rep, Geolog. Surv. Can, n, ser. 

 iv. 117 D.) 



1 G. M. Dawson, Garden and Forest, i. 58; Rep. Geolog. Surv. 

 Can. n. ser. iii. pt. i. 112 Bj Appx. i. 187 B. — Macoun, Rep. Geolog. 

 Surv. Can, n. ser. iii. pt. i. Appx. iii. 226 B. 



Larix Americana was not found by Dr. G. M. Dawson on the 

 Pelley and Lewes Rivers, but he suggests that the Larch seen by 

 Dall (Alaska and its Resources, 441, 592) on the lower Yukon is 

 probably this species, which he thinks may be found to extend 

 from the valley of the Mackenzie nearly to the shores of Behring 

 Sea. 



2 Provancher, Flore Canadienne, ii. 558. — Brunet, Cat. Veg. 



Lig. Can, 59. — Macoun, Cat. Can. PI. 475. 



^ Rothrock, Rep. Dept. Agric. Penn. 1895, pt. ii. Div. Forestry, 

 284. 



In Pennsylvania Larix Americana grows sparingly in the coldest 

 parts of Pike, Monroe, Luzerne, and Lackawanna counties, or on 

 the Pocano Plateau and the adjacent regions. It grows in Tama- 



rack Swamp in the northern part of Clinton County, and it is said, 

 on doubtful authority, to occur in Somerset County on the high 

 Alleghanies up to elevations of three thousand feet above the 

 sea. 



* The most southern station in Alherisi wheve Larix Americana 

 has been seen by Mr. John Macoun is in a swamp forty miles south- 

 west of Edmonton. 



^ On the Labrador coast trees grow in protected valleys at the 



heads of the inner bays up to latitude 58° north, although the 



western foothills of the Atlantic coast range are treeless. Two 



degrees farther south they grow on the coast and high up on the 



hills ; the headlands and outer hills remain, however, treeless as 



far south as HamUton Inlet. (See Low, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. 

 n. ser. viii. 31 L.) 



* Low, /. c. 36. 



7 Tyrrell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. n. ser. ix. 214 F. 

 ^ Teste John Macoun. 



9 Alton, Hort. Kew. iii. 369 {Pinus pendula). — Loudon, Arh Brit 

 iv. 2399. 



10 Larix Canadensis, longissimo folio, ed. 12""*, iv. 371 f. 92. 



11 "Groundsels made of Larch-tree will never rot, and the 



