23. LARIX AMERICANA TAMARACK. 73 



Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6215; Coefficient of Elasticity, 126126; Modu- 

 lus of Rupture, 901; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 536; Resist- 

 ance to Indentation, 112; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 38.86. 



USES. A favorite wood in ship-building especially when gotten out 

 as "natural crooks" for knees and similar timbers, for which its durability 

 and toughness render it very valuable. It makes excellent fence-posts, 

 telegraph-poles etc., and is one of the very best of our timbers for rail- 

 way ties. So much is it in demand for those purposes that we do not 

 often see it sawn into lumber. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. The inner bark of the European Larch 

 possesses astringent and slightly stimulant properties, and is supposed to 

 have a special tendency to the mucous membranes. It has been found 

 efficacious in the treatment of bronchitis, haemoptysis and of catarrhal 

 affections generally of the pulmonary and urinary passages.* Doubtless 

 the American species, which is closely allied to the European, would be 

 found to possess the same medicinal properties. 



NOTE. A "Tamarack Swamp," as occasionally seen in the Adiron- 

 dack region, presents a very singular appearance. They are often found 

 bordering ponds and beaver-meadows, and in such tracts Tamarack is 

 often the only timber found. Then the absence of underbrush, the deli- 

 cate light-green foliage, the rather pyramidal-shaped tops and straight 

 trunks form striking features. But especially is one impressed with the 

 way in which the branches grow out only above" a certain level, a little 

 higher than one's head, and that level is as accurately defined in every 

 tree as though it were a high- water mark. 



Another impressive feature is the soft yielding carpet of sphagnum 

 moss which covers the ground, and into which one sinks ankle-deep as he 

 walks. He can scarcely hear the sound of his own foot-steps, and the 

 oppressive silence is only broken by the sighing of the wind through the 

 tree- tops, or perhaps by the sweet song of the White-throated Sparrow, 

 which is common in those localities. Such a swamp once visited is long 

 remembered. 



GENUS THUJA, TOUKN. 



Leaves evergreen, small and scale-like, closely imbricated and appressed, so as to 

 make flat two-edged branchlets. Flowers (May, June) monoecious, in terminal very 

 small ovoid catkins. Sterile catkins with scales imbricated, filaments scale-like bear- 

 ing each 4 anther-cells. Fertile catkins consisting of a few carpellary scales without 

 bracts, and bearing each two erect ovules with orifices turned upward, becoming in 

 Fruit a small dry cone, as described above, opening at maturity; seeds winged; coty- 

 ledons two. 



(Thuja is from Greek, SVGO, to burn perfumes in allusion to the fragrance of the 

 smoke.) 



10 



* U. 8. Dispensatory, 15th ed., p. 844. 



