212 THE LARCH. 
cones and the young wood of the trees exhibit to some extent 
the same colours, but the red and the white flowering kinds 
cannot be distinguished in winter. The red is decidedly the 
hardiest tree, and best adapted for a late climate. The white, 
or L. Europea flore-albo, is imported from the Tyrol. I have 
repeatedly found that the seedling plants of this variety pro- 
duced from seed imported from the Tyrol have failed to ripen 
their tops so as to resist the early frosts of autumn, and even 
‘when grown from Scotch seed they are more tender than the red 
variety. All the finest specimens of the tree throughout the 
country are of the red larch.’ The structure of the branches 
and the rate of growth vary considerably in different trees of 
the species. But although the most distinct colours of the 
blossoms can be propagated from seeds with little or no 
variation, yet the more important properties of structure and 
growth are unfixed or accidental, and are not so uniformly 
inherited by the seedling plants. It often happens that late 
frosts in the end of April and in May, which is the time of 
the blossoms of the larch, destroy the crop of seed. Unlike 
the pine tree, the larch blossoms and ripens the cones during 
the same year. The cones are ripe in the beginning of winter, 
and in collecting them it is of importance to make choice of 
1In a recent work on forest management the following statement is given : 
—‘There are two varieties of larch generally found in cultivation in the 
plantations of Scotland, namely, the white and the red. The white is the 
variety which attains the greatest dimensions of timber, and is the sort most 
generally cultivated, although the two kinds are often seen growing together 
in the same plantation, and that by mere accident. It is said that upon the 
Atholl estates the red larch does not attain to more than one-third of the 
cubic contents to which the white larch does ; and this is observable in every 
plantation where the two varieties are found growing together.” 
The foregoing statement is very apt to mislead the inexperienced planter. 
The white larch when young is of more vigorous growth than the red, but as 
itis far more tender, its vigour soon subsides ; and it ought to be avoided as far 
as possible. I once grew it purely, alongside the red variety, in the nursery, 
but found it extremely tender ; its top shoots seldom ripened, and in spring 
they drooped, retaining the foliage of the previous year, and became of no 
value. Fortunately the larch plantations in the north of Scotland contain 
only a very small proportion of the white variety, probably not exceeding 5 
per cent., and in grown woods I have never found the white the largest, but 
the reverse. I know that the cultivated trees at Dunkeld and throughout the 
Atholl plantations and at Monymusk are of the red variety. 
