THE LARCH. 297 



becomes scaly, and bears a greater resemblance in colour to the 

 reddish grey of the Scotch Fir, though it is usually more of a mauve 

 hue. 



THE LEAF. 



The hanging branchlets are thickly studded with round knob- 

 like brown buds. When these burst, there emerge bundles of bright 

 yellow-green spines packed tightly together. Gradually these increase 

 in size and spread away from one another at the tips, till they 

 appear as a tassel of soft vivid-green, needle-like leaves, radiating 

 from a knob, and resembling a shuttlecock in outline. This clustering 

 of the leaves is a constant habit due to the arrested growth of the lateral 

 branches ; on the newly-formed terminal shoots the needles often grow 

 singly instead of in bunches, and become more widely separated as 

 the shoot lengthens. The fully-grown leaf is about an inch long. 

 The lower branches of the Larch are often in leaf before other 

 forest trees show any sign that their winter is past. In autumn the 

 spines turn pale yellow, and even when fallen do not soon decay, 

 but for a month or so reflect a golden light on to the boles of 

 the trees round which they lie. 



Although the Larch is a deciduous tree, its leaves resemble 

 those of other cone-bearing trees in their general structure. That is 

 to say, the leaf takes the shape of a petiole, and the fibres remain 

 united, instead of separating one from the other to form the nerves 

 of a leaf distinguishable from a petiole as in most desiduous trees. 

 To the comparative development of these nerves and of the completion 

 ot the spaces between them, is due in all the cases the difference 

 of appearance in leaf forms. 



