52 HOUGH'S AMERICAN- WOODS. 



HABITAT. From the mountains of southern British Columbia 

 southward along both slopes of the Cascade Mountains and the coast 

 ranges of Washington and Oregon at elevations of from about twelve 

 hundred to six thousand feet, probably attaining its greatest size on the 

 Olympic Mountains, and reaching its southern most limit of distribution 

 about a hundred miles north of the southern boundary of Oregon. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, of medium hardness and 

 strength, close grained and of a pale brownish red color with little 

 difference in tint between sap and heart- woods, Specific Gravity, 

 0.4228; Percentage of Ash, 0.23; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 

 0.4218; Coefficient of Elasticity, 126013; Modulus of Rupture. 792; 

 Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure* 467; Resistance to Indentation, 

 64; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 26.35. 



USES. Though not extensively employed, probably from the 

 abundance of other woods, this wood is used occasionally for interior 

 finishing and general construction purposes. 



GENUS LARIX, TOURN. 



Leaves needle-shaped, soft, deciduous, in clusters of many each, from lateral 

 scaly buds excepting along the shoots of the season, where they are scattered. 

 Sterile flowers terminating lateral scaly buds or spurs on shoots of preceding 

 year, with 2-celled anthers opening longitudinally; pollen grains, simple and 

 globular. Fertile flowers in catkins cones red while in flower, consisting of 

 several or many carpellary scales springing from the axils of bracts, and bearing 

 each 2 ovules with orifices turned downward. Fruit an erect, oval or roundish 

 cone, with colored persistent scales, and maturing the season of blossoming. 



(Larix is the Latin classical name of the Larch.) 



A genus of eight species of trees (three of which are American), confined to the 

 boreal and mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere and of great 

 economic importance. (Larix is the ancient Latin name of the Larch.} 



250. LARIX OCCIDENTALIS, NUTT. 



WESTERN TAMARACK. LARCH OR HACKMATACK. 



Ger., Westliche Ldrche ; Fr., Meleze occidental^' Sp., Larice 



occidental. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves from 1-lf in. long, triangular, rigid,, rounded 

 above, keeled beneath, with sharp point and of a pale green color; branchlets 

 pubescent at first but soon glabrous; winter buds subglobose. Staminate flowers 

 oblong, on stalks finally about in. long; anthers pale yellow; pistillate flowers 

 oblong, subsessile with nearly orbicular scales and bracts with midrib prolonged 

 in a long slender tip. Cones from 1-1| in. in length, nearly sessile with numer- 

 ous thin stiff scales which are entire or nearly so, hoary-tomentose beneath below 

 the middle and widely separating or becoming reflexed at maturity to liberate 

 the seeds, which are pale brown, nearly \ in. long, and furnished with a thin 

 pale wing two or three times their length, broadest at about the middle and 

 obliquely rounded at apex. 



This beautiful Larch is the most stately of its genus, attaining under 

 favorable circumstances a height of 250 ft. (75 m.) with columnar 



