LARIX AMERICANA. 389 



Larix americana. 



A slender tree 50 70 or more feet high with a trunk 2 3 feet 

 in diameter near the base, oftener much less, and at its northern 

 limit a low tree or bush not higher than a man. Bark ash-brown, 

 at first smooth or slightly rugose, much and irregularly fissured in old 

 age. Branches relatively stout; in old age often large, irregularly 

 developed, and sometimes much contorted. Branchlets with light yellowish 

 brown bark, mostly pendulous. Leaves in tufts of twenty forty, 

 narrowly linear, 0'5 1 inch long, obscurely mucronate, with a sunk 

 median line above and keeled beneath, light grass-green, sometimes 

 with a bluish tint. Stamiuate flowers globose, cream-white, scarcely 

 0-25 inch in diameter. Ovuliferous flowers 0'5 inch long; scales 

 crimson with a narrow green bract. Cones the smallest in the genus, 

 globose-cylindric, 0'75 inch long ; scales suborbicular with a short 

 thickened claw; bract one-third as long as the scale. 



Larix americana, Michaux, Hist. Arb. Amer. III. 37, t. 4 (1813). Loudon, Arb. 

 et Frut. Brit. IV. 2399. Hoopes, Evergreens, 247. Regel in Gartenfl. XX. 105. 

 Macoun, Cat. Canad. Plants, 475. Beissner, Nadelholzk. 329. Sargent, Silva N. 

 Amer. XII. 7, t. 593. 



L. microcarpa, Forbes, Piriet. Woburn, 139, t. 47 (1839). Link in Linnsea, XV. 536. 

 Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 355. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 175. Kent in Veitch's 

 Manual, ed. I. 130. 



L. pendula, Salisbury in Trans. Linn. Soc. VIII. 313 (1805). Gordon, Pinet. 

 ed. II. 177. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 218. 



L. tenuifolia, Salisbury in Trans. Linn. Soc. VIII. 314 (1805). 



L. laricina, Koch, Dendr. II. 263 (1873). 



Pinus laricina, Duroi, Observ. bot. 49 (1771). 



P. pendula, Lambert, Genus Pinus, I. t. 36. Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 132. 

 Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 409. 



P. microcarpa, Lambert, Genus Pinus, I. t. 37 (1803). Endlicher, Synops. 

 Conif. 132. 



Abies microcarpa, Lamarck, Diet. VI. 514 (1804). Liiidley, Penny Cycl. I. 

 33, (1833). And many others.* 



Eng. American Larch, Red Larch. Amer. Tamarack, Hackmatack, Black Larch. 

 Fr. Meleze d'Amerique, Epinette rouge. Germ. Kleinzapfige Larche. Ital. Larice 

 nero, Larice americano. 



The American Larch is essentially a northern tree, widely dispersed 

 over an immense region which may be roughly described as extending 

 from Yukon and the valley of the Mackenzie river eastwards to the 

 shores of Labrador and including Newfoundland ; and from the 

 Arctic Circle southwards to about the 40th parallel of north latitude. 

 In the Canadian provinces and the northern States it mostly occurs 

 in cold swampy ground associated with Abies balsamea, Picea nigra 

 and T/mia occidentals, in places forming pure forests. The wood is 

 heavy, hard, very strong, rather coarse-grained, and durable in contact 



* This Larch has been excessively overburdened with names. One of the oldest is the Pinus 

 Larix americana of Miinchhausen, published in 1770 ; this was not, however, taken up by 

 Lambert who figured it in the " Genus Pinus " as two species under the names of P. pendula 

 and P. microcarpa. Salisbury also described it as two species, but substituted tenuifolia, 

 for Lambert's microcarpa. Michaux recognised but one species in Canada and the eastern 

 United States, since abundantly confirmed, and named it Larix americana in contradistinction 

 to L. europcea. By adopting Michaux' name, the ambiguity attending the older names of 

 Lambert and Salisbury is got rid of. 



