348 APPENDIX VIII 



17. P. pendula ? 1 [Soland in] Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. I. 3, p. 369 ; Lamb. 

 Gen. Pin. ed. I. i. p. 56, t. 36 ; Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 2, p. 645. 



Flowers in April and May. 



For want of perfect cones I am unable to decide whether this tree found 

 west of the Rocky Mountains be truly distinct from P. pendula. 



The trees are one to two hundred feet high, five to twenty-five feet 

 in circumference. Beautifully straight and remarkably singular, being 

 spirally twisted, which is advantageously seen in dead trees that have lost 

 the bark. The bark is smooth and reddish. The branches are horizontal, 

 short and twiggy, springing from the trunk in regular whorls and nearly 

 at equal distances from each other, which gives it an aspect very different 

 from any of the species of this Section. From recollection I state that the 

 cones will be found larger. The wood is very durable, judging from the 

 drift-wood usually found on the rocks of the river. I have seen some 

 which had lain thirty years and still comparatively sound . The native tribes 

 do not use it, its hard tough texture being too great for the slender means 

 they have of working it. Common on the west side of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains in Lat. 52 07' 09" and at the Kettle Falls of the Columbia in 48 

 37' 40" in aqueous deposits composed of decayed vegetables ; also in rocky 

 places where the soil is thin ; composed of decayed granite and earth, it 

 arrives at the greatest size. 



1 Larix americana, Sargent, Silva N. Am. xii. p. 7. 



