148 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A tree, of which little is known concerning habit or dimensions, 

 unique amongst the genus in having reddish-brown, slender 

 young branchlets, densely covered with long hairs, traces of 

 which remain on the greyish, older twigs; lateral buds shining 

 dark brown. Short shoots, slender, conic, with similar buds, 

 fringed around the base when opening with reddish-brown hairs. 



Leaves, short and slender, not exceeding | inch long and 

 0-025 inch wide, curved, rounded at the apex, convex above, 

 deeply keeled beneath, with one stomatic line on each side of 

 the keel. Microscopic section ^ (Fig. 2) shows a fibro-vascular 

 bundle, circular, with scattered wood cells ; hypoderm of thick- 

 walled cells, continuous under the epiderm all round. Resin- 

 canals present in leaves of the long shoots, large, placed more 

 inwards than usual in the genus, being separated from the 

 epidermis by two layers of thick-walled hypoderm. Leaves of 

 the short shoots, with rudimentary or obsolete resin-canals,, 

 differing also from the leaves of the long shoots in being 

 slightly deeper in proportion to their width and without stomatic 

 lines above. Cones o-6-o'8 inch long, o"5-o'6 inch wide when 

 closed, with the exserted tips of the bracts visible between the 

 scales, which are 20 to 30 in number, in 4 to 6 rows, o'3 inch 

 wide and slightly less long, reniform-orbicular, entire and 

 rounded at the upper margin, covered externally with a dense 

 minute pubescence. Bract 0-2 inch long, oblong, but widest at 

 the base, truncate at the apex with a minute mucro. Seed with 

 wing ^ inch long; body o'l inch long, marbled grey on the 

 surface next the scale, shining dark brown on the other surface ; 

 wing short, brown, broadest towards the base. 



The description of this larch is mainly drawn up from a few 

 twigs with cones, which were sent home by Captain Clinton- 

 Baker, R.N., in 1911, with the note: "The only conifer at 

 Olga and Vladimir Bays, all nearly cut down for timber." It is 

 possible that this larch extends farther inland and to the north- 

 ward ; but Komarov,^ who confused it with Z. sih'n'ca, states that 



^ The microscopic details, diagram and photograph, are due to Mr M. 

 O'Beirne, research scholar in Forestry at the Roy. Coll. Science, Dublin. 

 The blocks have been kindly lent by the editor of the Gardeners' Chrotiicle. 



2 Dr Komarov, of the Petrograd Imperial Botanic Garden, in a recent letter 

 to Prof. Henry, states that this larch only occurs in two forests of small 

 extent, one on the coast of Olga Bay, the other a little south of this in the 

 valley of the river Pihusun. In Kamtschatka, and elsewhere on the main- 

 land of eastern Siberia, Larix dahiirica is the species of larch met with. 



