PINE FAMILY 
Tne Hemlock is one of the most beautiful of the cone 
bearing trees; and although similar in general form to the 
spruces, rigidity has transformed itself into ease and formality 
into grace and beauty. “The branches are slender and pliant, 
heavily clothed with foliage, drooping in habit and the lower- 
sweep the ground, As the tree becomes older they become 
large and strong and stand out horizontally. The difference 
between youth and age is marked. ‘Phe wood is not valuable, 
it has neither strength nor durability, but the bark is exten- 
sively used in tanning and is the chief commercial product of 
the tree: 
TAMARACK. LARCH. HACMATACK 
Larix laricina, Larix americana. 
Fifty to sixty feet high, trunk eighteen to twenty inches in diam- 
eter, when young it forms a narrow pyramidal head and this con- 
tinues in the forest, but in the open it loses its regular form and 
develops a broad, open, irregular and often picturesque head. It 
ranges northward to the arctic circle and its southern limit seems to 
be along the line of northern Pennsylvania, northern Indiana, north- 
ern Illinois, and central Minnesota. Prefers cold, deep swamps but 
is occasionally found on dry land. 
Bark.—Bright reddish brown, separating into thin appressed scales. 
Branchlets pendulous, the young branches are green, smooth, and 
glaucous later light orange brown, gradually they become darker 
and at last are dark brown. 
IVood.—Light brown, very resinous, sapwood nearly white ; heavy, 
hard, strong, rather coarse-grained, durable in contact with the soil. 
Used for ship-timbers, fence posts, telegraph poles, and railway ties. 
Sp. gr., 0.6236; weight of cu. ft., 38.86 lbs. 
Winter Buds.—Dark red, globose, lustrous, small. 
Leaves.—Needle-shaped, rounded above keeled below, three- 
fourths to one and one-fourth inches long, at first bright green, 
later dark green. They turn pale yellow and fall in October. They 
are borne, either scattered on leading shoots, or in crowded fascicles 
on short lateral branchlets, each leaf in the axil of a minute, decid- 
uous bud scale. 
flowers.—May, with the leaves. Moncecious. Staminate flowers 
subglobose, sessile, usually borne on branchlets one or two years 
old; composed of many short-stalked anthers spirally arranged 
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