LARICOPSIS. 403 



The Siberian Larch covers large areas in northern Eussia as far 

 as the 67th parallel of north latitude and spreads eastwards through 

 Siberia to the Yenesei river and probably beyond it ; it also 

 follows the trend of the Altai mountains as far as Lake Baikal, 

 ascending in places to 5,000 feet above sea level. It is one of the 

 most widely distributed trees in Siberia, and one of the most 

 useful to the inhabitants of the region. 



According to Willkomm, the Siberian differs from the European Larch 

 in its longer and more crowded leaves ; in its pale green ovuliferous 

 flowers surrounded at the base by numerous involucral bracts which 

 almost enclose them ; in its reflexed ovuliferous scales which are at 

 first clothed with down, and in its usually larger cones. It was 

 introduced from Archangel by the Duke of Atholl in 1806, and a 

 trial was made of it in the plantations at Dunkeld which proved a 

 failure.* Transported from a climate in which the seasons are arctic 

 and sub-tropical by turns, the trees dwindle and ultimately perish under 

 the stimulus of the more equable climate of this country. 



LAEICOPSIS. 



Pseudolarix,f Gordon, Pinet. ed. I. 298 (1858). Eichler in Engler and Prantl, Nat. Pfl. 

 Fam. 77 (1887) Masters in Journ. Linn. Soc. XXX. 32 (1893). Larix, Bentham and 

 Hooker, Gen. Plant. III. 442 (in part). 



In 1853 the late Eobert Fortune discovered a Larch, or properly 

 a Larch-like tree, in eastern China, of which he sent herbarium 

 specimens to Dr. Lindley. The cones differ in several respects from 

 those of the common Larch especially in the scales which instead 

 of being persistent " are so deciduous that it is scarcely possible to 

 hold them together." Dr. Lindley accordingly referred the tree to 

 Abies although the foliage was known to be tufted and deciduous 

 like that of the Larch ; but Gordon in the first edition of his 

 " Pinetum " gave it separate generic rank as Pseudolarix, an ill- 

 phrased name unsuited for scientific nomenclature. The staminate 

 flowers remained unknown to science until 1884 when a tree in the 

 nursery of Messrs. Eovelli, at Pallanza in Italy, produced them, 

 which, as the illustration shows, differ morphologically from those 

 of every other Larch in their umbellate disposition, j These 

 differences in the cones and staminate flowers are now recognised 

 as sufficient for establishing a distinct genus for the reception of 

 the Chinese Larch. 



* London, Arboretum et Fruticetnm Britannicum, loc. cit. 



f This is a negative name that connotes nothing definitely. Granted that the prefix 

 "pseudo" may be conveniently combined with technical terms in the sense of "apparently 

 but not really," it is manifestly objectionable in the generic names, and scarcely less so in 

 the specific names of plants. ""Nature produces nothing false," certainly not in the Greek 



sense of i//t)?oe. 



% It is a singular fact that nearly all the monotypic Coniferse of China and Japan have 

 the umbellate disposition of their staminate flowers ; Ginkgo, Sciadopitys, Cunninghamia 

 and Laricopsis. It is also a characteristic of Abietia (Keteleeria) Fortunei. 



