44 Studies in Forestry [CHAP. n. 



the zones more congenial to these genera. The climate in 

 which it thrives best is the Alpine climate, that is to say, one 

 in which a long cold winter is succeeded by an exceedingly 

 short spring, and followed by an equable, warm summer, which 

 again, after a very short autumn, gives place to the long period 

 of winter rest and defoliation. Removed far from its true 

 Alpine home, and subjected to climatic conditions essentially 

 differing therefrom, can it be wondered at that its development 

 has been, on the whole, disappointing ? In place of having the 

 good straight bole, which is characteristic of its growth where 

 indigenous, it tends to curved, sabre-like form ; the stem and 

 branches are prone to favour the development of hanging 

 lichens ( Usnea barbata, &c.) ; the foliage is damaged by cater- 

 pillars of the mining-moth (Coleophora laricelld] and of another 

 Tortrix (Grapholitha pinicoland] ; whilst the boles are specially 

 liable, at from about ten to twenty-five years of age, and more 

 especially after bad attacks of these insects, to become infected 

 with the serious cankerous, fungoid disease due to Peziza 

 Willkommii. This has often necessitated a clearance at the 

 age of forty to fifty years, or long before the crops would, under 

 more favourable circumstances, have been anything like tech- 

 nically or financially mature. The investigations of Professor 

 R. Hartig of Munich have shown that the fungus which occa- 

 sions this disease is indigenous to the Alpine home of the 

 Larch, and sometimes occasions canker on stems there ; but it 

 has followed the tree to central and Northern Germany, and 

 to England and Scotland, where, owing to climatic condi- 

 tions and to its less vigorous growth, the stems are more 

 liable to become infected, whilst the ravages committed are 

 at the same time more serious. His own words are as 

 follows : 



' The enormous distribution which the Larch fungus, Peziza Willkommii 

 has obtained on the German plains, is almost solely explained by the 

 rich development of fully matured fruits and spores in the damp, and 

 more especially in the stagnating, atmosphere of close-canopied forests 



