214 TREES OF MINNESOTA. 



I/arix laricina. (L. americana.} Tamarack. American 

 Larch. Hackmatack. 



Leaves one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, slender 

 and thread-like, light bluish green, deciduous. Cones one-half 

 to one inch long, ovoid. A slender, graceful tree, thirty to one 

 hundred feet high, with close or at length sightly scaly bark. 



Distribution. Northeastern United States, north of Pennsyl- 

 vania, nearly or quite to the Arctic regions and west nearly to 

 Central Minnesota; rare farther south than Ramsey and Henne- 

 pin counties in Minnesota. It covers vast areas of swamp land 

 in the northern part of this state with a short stunted growth. 

 It fails to reach large size in very wet land, while on land that 

 is not excessively wet it grows 100 feet high and sixteen inches 

 through at the stump. In one instance a stunted Tamarack, 

 growing on excessively wet land, had been forty-eight years in 

 attaining a diameter of one and one-tenth inches, while on land 

 well adapted to it a tree had grown to the height of forty-four 

 and one-quarter feet, with a diameter of eleven inches in thirty- 

 eight years. 



Properties of Wood. Heavy, hard, strong, rather coarse 

 grained, compact, durable in contact with the soil; color light 

 brown; sapwood nearly white. Specific gravity, 0.6236; weight 

 of a cubic foot, 38.86 pounds. 



Uses. The Tamarack may occasionally be used for variety in 

 lawn planting on moist soil, and is well adapted to planting along 

 lake shores and around sloughs; but on dry soil it is of little 

 value, and we have many far more valuable trees for moist soils. 

 The lumber is largely used in ship building, canoe making, for 

 fence posts, telegraph poles, railway ties, etc. The inner bark 

 of European Larch is used in medicine, and it is probable that 

 the bark of our American species has similar medicinal proper- 

 ties. Two varieties varying in color of heartwood, the red and 

 the white Tamarack, are commonly distinguished. The differ- 

 ence is probably one of age only. The red hearted trees, having 

 the more heartwood, make the more durable lumber. This tree 

 grows fast, and readily renews itself from seed. For these rea- 

 sons, good Tamarack swamps, properly managed, should prove 

 profitable investments. 



