296 A HANDBOOK OF CONIFERS 



Captain (now Vice- Admiral Sir Lewis) Clinton-Baker, R.N. Seeds 

 were procured about the same time, but the plants raised from 

 them were weak and several were killed by the great drought 

 of 1921, the survivors being injured by frost the following 

 spring. It does not appear to be a suitable tree for Britain. 



Larix pendula, Sahsbury.^ (Fig. 65.) 

 Weeping Larch. 



L. americana, Michaiix, var. pendula, Loudon ; L. dahiirica, Elwes and 

 Henry (not Turczaninow) ; Pinus pendula, Aiton. 



A tree 70-90 ft. high. Bark variable in character, resembling 

 that of the European larch or peeling off in thin squarish plates 

 like that of a cedar. Young shoots slender without down, 

 usually pinkish at first, but becoming yellowish green with age. 

 Terminal buds conical, resinous, short-pointed ; axillary buds 

 smaller and blunter. Leaves like those of L. europcea, but with 

 the tips usually blunter than in that species. Cones variable 

 in length of stalk, from f-1^ in. long, ^1 in. wide ; scales bright 

 brown, the margins bevelled and crenate, the outer surface often 

 minutely downy at the base, bracts hidden. Seeds intermediate 

 in size between those of L. americana and L. europcea. 



This larch was first described by Aiton in 1789, and stated to 

 be a native of Newfoundland. Pursh ^ states definitely that it 

 occurs in low cedar swamps from Canada to Jersey, that it 

 is quite distinct from L. americana, and that he never found the 

 two trees growing together, but no other botanist or traveller 

 seems to have seen east of the Rocky Mountains any larch except 

 L. americana. Lambert's figure of Pinus pendula, published in 

 1803, and quoted by Pursh, shows a plant identical with the larch 

 now known as Larix pendula, but for some years confused with 

 Larix dahurica.^ Lambert states definitely that this figure was 

 made from specimens taken from the original tree in CoUinson's 

 garden at Mill Hill,^ which had been moved from Peckham, where 

 it was planted in 1739. In 1740 Miller^ mentions this tree as 

 " brought from America." Henry, in a recent paper on the origin 

 of L. pendula,^ maintains that the larch at Mill Hill was the result 

 of a chance cross between L. americana and L. europcea, that all 

 existing trees are descendants from it and show all possible 

 combinations of the characters of the two species. The main 

 basis of this argument rests on the assumption that from the time 



^ Trans. Linn. Soc. viii, 314 (1807). 



^ Fl. Amer. ii, 645 (1814). ^ Elwes and Henry, loc. cit. 



* Cones from this tree are still preserved in the British Museum. 



^Gard. Diet. Abridg. ii (1740). 



^ Gard. Chron. Sept. 18, 1915, p. 178. 



