122 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It was a mild rainy day when we arrived, and after reaching 

 the hotel it did not take me many minutes to recognise, with 

 my glasses, the light green of the Lyall larch, growing at timber- 

 level — 7000 to 8000 feet. I started through the thick under- 

 growth of azalea and blaeberry, and was soon thoroughly 

 drenched. The Finns contorta had been left behind before Lake 

 Louise was reached, and the timber here is Picea Engelmanni 

 and Abies lasiocarpa solely. Both were covered with cones — 

 even trees only 6 feet high — and indeed the two are much alike, 

 but for the red drooping cones of the Picea and the black erect 

 ones of the Abies. After a good deal stiffer climb than I 

 expected, I reached the first of the Larix Lyallii, and managed 

 to get some photographs taken while the rain was falling. The 

 tree was first discovered by David Lyall, a Scotsman who 

 accompanied the expedition which settled the International 

 Boundary in 1857. It never exceeds 85 feet in height, and 2 

 to 3 feet in diameter. The woolly tomentum which covers the 

 twigs and buds makes it easily recognisable. As far as I am 

 aware, it has never before been brought to this country, but I 

 arranged with a Chinaman to get me later on a supply of the 

 seed and about a dozen plants which I have growing at Dawyck. 

 The seeds ripen and are shed in the first three weeks of September; 

 they do not remain in the cones as with our larch. I hope I 

 may raise some plants and keep those I have got. This larch 

 is so purely Alpine in its habit, that I have no expectation that 

 it would ever be a useful tree in this country. Its great kinsman, 

 Larix occidentalism however, is perhaps better worth growing as 

 a timber-tree in Great Britain than any other exotic. This 

 tree, which unfortunately did not seed last season, does 

 not grow so high up or extend so far north as Lyallii, and 

 covers a much wider area throughout Eastern Oregon and 

 Washington, parts of Montana and Idaho, and the Kootenay 

 County of British Columbia. A splendid tree, it often grows 

 to 200 feet high ; the largest specimen I know of is 24 feet 

 round, 6 feet from the ground ; this tree is in the Wallowa 

 Mountains of Oregon. This larch is incomparably the grandest 

 variety of larch in the world. Throughout this country 

 there is a thick undergrowth of azalea covered with lemon 

 coloured blossom, not the azalea of the West, but one with 

 small waxy bell-like flowers. We made an expedition on 

 horseback to the glacier which discharges into the south end of 



