382 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



In the Cambridge Botanic Garden there are two trees of this species, one 56 

 feet high by 5 feet in girth, in 1906. The bark scales off in smaller plates than the 

 common larch, and shows more red-coloured cortex below. The second tree, 

 labelled L. pendula, is grafted at 6 feet up on the common larch, and has its stem 

 bent over at a right angle a few feet higher up. 



At Ribston Park, Yorkshire, there is a well-grown tree of L. dahurica which 

 cannot be more than about forty years old, as Major Dent remembers its being 

 planted, though its origin is unknown. It has somewhat pendulous branches and 

 smooth bark without ridges, and measures 71 feet by 5 feet 2 inches. It had both 

 new and old cones on it in 1906. 



There are some larches at Boynton, near Bridlington, Yorkshire, which Sir 

 Charles Strickland has always known as red larches, and supposed to have been 

 of American origin, but which I believe, on account of their smoother bark, to be 

 L. dahurica. The best of them is 75 feet by 7 feet 8 inches ; another, with a 

 very spreading top, was 9 feet 4 inches in girth ; and both had cones from which 

 seedlings have been raised. Sir Charles Strickland has written of these in the 

 Gardeners Chronicle, 1896, pp. 399 and 494. He says that the trees which have 

 been grown at Boynton for eighty or ninety years under the name of red and 

 black larch are the two trees described in Loudon as varieties of Larix americana ; 

 and that the red larch is more like the European larch, and in loose, rather wet, 

 sandy soil grows at Boynton as fast and to as large a size, but he does not consider 

 the wood quite as good as that of the common larch ; it is more liable to twist and 

 warp, though probably as durable. On drier soils the red larch is much less healthy 

 and vigorous than the common one. 



At Murthly Castle there is a row of fifteen trees which were planted about 

 1 88 1 by Mr. D. F. Mackenzie, who informs me that they were probably from the 

 nursery of Messrs. B. Reid of Aberdeen, but their origin cannot now be traced with 

 certainty. Their habit varies very much, the first one, coming from the Castle, 

 having very pendulous branches and a weeping top, which none of the others 

 possess. The cones also vary somewhat in size and colour, but with one exception — 

 which I believe to be a common larch planted subsequently to replace a dead tree of 

 the original lot — are characteristic of L. dahurica. The trees average 40 to 45 feet 

 high and 3 to 4 feet in girth, and have the bark distinctly smoother and less 

 corrugated than the bark of common larch growing under similar conditions. 

 They are fairly healthy in appearance, with no evidence of having suffered from 

 Peziza, but are bearing cones so freely that I do not expect they will become large 

 trees. Mr. Mackenzie attributes this to their growing on dry, gravelly soil. 



(H. J. E.) 



