Larix 403 



LARIX LYALLII, Lyall's Larch 



Larix Lyallii, Parlatore, Enum. Sent. Hort. Reg. Mus. Flor. 1863, Journ. Bot. i. 35 (1863), and 

 Gard. Chron. 1863, p. 916; Sargent, Gard. Chron. xxv. 653, f. 146 (1886), Silva N. Amer. 

 xii. 15, t. 595 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 37 (1905); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conifera, 399 

 (1900). 



A tree attaining in America 80 feet in height and 1 2 feet in girth, but usually 

 considerably smaller. Bark of young stems and branches thin and pale grey, on 

 larger stems loose and scaly, on older trunks 2 inches thick and fissuring into 

 irregular plates covered by reddish-brown loose scales. Young branchlets covered 

 with a dense greyish tomentum, concealing the pulvini, and partly persistent on older 

 branchlets, which become greyish black in colour. Short shoots stout and greyish 

 pubescent. Bud-scales fringed with long cilia. Base of the long shoots girt with a 

 sheath of the previous season's bud -scales, the uppermost of which are loose, 

 membranous, and reflected. 



Leaves bluish green, rhombic in section, deeply keeled on both surfaces, i to i^ 

 inch long, rigid, ending in a sharp cartilaginous point. 



Staminate flowers ovoid, acute at the apex, \ inch long, raised on stalks \ inch 

 long. Pistillate flowers ovoid, with the bracts reflected about their middle, their 

 mucros curving outwards ; bract oblong, \ inch long, truncate at the apex, the midrib 

 being prolonged into a rigid mucro about \ inch long. 



Cones ovoid, acute at the apex, i^ to 2 inches long, on a short tomentose stalk : 

 scales numerous, loosely imbricated, thin, ovate, of a beautiful pink colour before 

 ripening, \ inch long, fringed with matted hairs ; outer surface sparingly pubescent : 

 bracts extending up to the margin of the scale, with their mucros projecting beyond 

 about \ inch and at first directed upwards ; when ripe the scales spread at right 

 angles and finally, together with the bracts, become much reflexed. Seeds in slight 

 depressions on the scale, with their wings narrowly divergent and not reaching its 

 upper margin. Seed together with wing about -^ inch long ; wing pale pink in 

 colour, broadest near the base. 



This species has been supposed to be an alpine form of L, occidentalis ; but is 

 readily distinguished from it by the structure of the leaves, the tomentum of the 

 branchlets, the beautiful pink cones, which have fringed scales, and the pink-winged 

 seeds. (A. H.) 



This tree was discovered by Dr. D. Lyall when surgeon to the International 

 Boundary Commission in British Columbia in 1858, and though I have raised seed- 

 lings which I believe to be this species, it has not as yet been introduced into 

 cultivation either in America or Europe, though it is a tree which must have been 

 seen by thousands of travellers while crossing the Rocky Mountains in the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway. Plate 112 shows a typical tree growing near Laggan, and is from 

 a negative which I purchased at Victoria. 



It is a strictly alpine tree, of somewhat limited range, its northern limit being 



