CONIFERiE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA, 



13 



first distinguishing this tree. Larix occidentalis was first cultivated in 1881 in the Arnold Arboretum^ 

 where it is hardy and produces cones.^ 



In the struggle for supremacy between the different inhabitants of the Columbian forests under 

 the changed conditions which have followed the white man's occupation of the country^ Larix occi- 



r ■ 



dentalis seems destined to hold its own and probably even to extend its sway, for in this struggle, in 

 which fire now plays a controlling part, it is aided by the great thickness of its bark, which enables 

 half -grown trees to bear without permanent injury the heat of annual fires, and by the power of its 

 abundant seeds to germinate and of its seedlings to grow rapidly in the shade of other trees and in 

 favorable situations often to overtop and finally to destroy them. 



the world, as remarkable as the Sugar Pine or any of his other 

 discoveries, the western Larch would not probably have remained 

 one of the least known of the important timber-trees of America. 

 1 Seedling plants of Larix occidentalism transfeired from Oregon 



to the Arnold Arboretum in 1881, have remained small and stunted, 

 but branches of these trees grafted on roots of the Japanese Larch 

 have grown vigorously into shapely trees now nearly twenty feet 

 in height and almost twice as large as the seedlings. 



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