Western Larch 



51 



are globose, dark red, and shining. The leaves are pale green, filiform, triangu- 

 lar, rounded above, keeled below, i to 2.5 cm. long, numerous in each cluster, 

 terminating branchlets about 4 mm. long; they fall off in the autumn. The 

 staminate flowers are sessile, subglobose, and 

 light yellow; the pistillate flowers are borne on 

 the lateral branchlets of the previous year, are 

 short-stalked, oblong, and reddish. The cones, 

 which are borne on short, stout branchlets, are 

 ovoid, blunt, 12 to 20 mm. long, light brown, 

 shedding their' seed during the autumn and 

 early winter, and fall off the next spring and 

 summer; the scales are nearly orbicular, slightly 

 longer than wide, concave, slightly irregularly 

 toothed or entire; those near the middle of the 

 cone are the largest, those towards each end 

 smaller; the bracts are about half the length 

 of the scales and abruptly tipped; the brown 

 seed is about 3 mm. long, one third the length 

 of its wing. 



The wood is hard, strong, compact but 

 coarse-grained, Ught brown, and durable; its specific gravity is about 0.62. It is 

 largely used in ship-building; also for telegraph poles and railroad ties. The bark 

 and the resinous exudation therefrom are reputed to be of some medicinal value. 



As an ornamental tree it is the most desirable of the Larches for planting in 

 the northern States, growing very rapidly and retaining its symmetry of form 

 longer than any other. 



The Alaska larch, Larix alaskensis W. F. Wight, very recently described, 

 is said to differ from the Tamarack by shorter leaves, relatively longer cone- 

 scales, and bracts not abruptly tipped. 



Fig. 39. — Tamarack. 



'2. WESTERN LARCH — Larix occidentalis Nuttall 



This, the largest known species of its genus, is also called Red American larch. 

 Great Western larch, and Western tamarack. It occurs only in the valleys of the 

 Columbia River and its tributaries, where it is scattered through the great mixed 

 forests for which this region is famous, growing on mountain sides up to 2100. 

 meters, but reaches its greatest development of 75 meters, with a trunk diameter 

 of 2 meters in the river or creek valleys in northern Montana and Idaho. 



The branches are elongated, mainly horizontal, and rather distant, forming an 

 open cone. The lower branches die and fall off before the tree attains a great age, 

 exposing a very high, straight-tapering trunk, naked for three fourths or more of 

 its height, with a short narrow head on which there are so few of the short nar- 

 row leaves that it seems remarkable how the tree thrives with so small an amount 



