484 CONIFEB.E. 



The members of the genus Larix are distinguished from 

 the rest of the Abietina by being deciduous, that is, they 

 lose their leaves in the autumn of the same year in 

 which they are produced, instead of retaining them for 

 one or more years, as is the case with all the Pines and 

 Firs belonging to the genera Pinus, Abies, and Picea. 

 The species, botanically speaking, generally admitted as 

 distinct, are not more than three or four ; viz., the Larix 

 Europaa, which inhabits the mountainous regions of Eu- 

 rope, the Larix Siberica, which probably may only be a 

 variety of Larix Europaa, found in Russia, Siberia, and 

 Northern Asia, and Larix pendula, and Larix rubra, 

 natives of North America. 



Of these different kinds, the Larix Europcea far sur- 

 passes the rest in the dimensions it attains, at the same 

 time that its timber possesses, in the highest degree, that 

 durability and excellence which characterize all the trees 

 of this genus. 



The European, or Common Larch, whose cultivation in 

 Scotland and the north of England, within the last sixty 

 years, has far surpassed that of any other tree, and in a 

 great measure superseded the planting of the Scotch Pine, 

 and whose valuable properties as a timber tree, applicable 

 to almost every purpose in naval, as well as civil archi- 

 tecture, are only beginning to be duly appreciated, is a 

 native of several of the mountainous regions of Europe. 

 On the Alps of France and Switzerland it is extensively 

 distributed, occupying the chasms and gullies of the moun- 

 tain slopes to a height of five thousand feet above the 

 level of the sea, and it has been observed to give a prefer- 

 ence to a northern, over a southern exposure ; this De 

 Candolle supposes to arise from the irregularity of the 

 spring in these Alpine localities, where frequently a too 



