398 



THE LARCH. 



the ground, the lower ones being more or less 

 pendulous, as also is the spray throughout. The 

 leaves are bright green, growing in tufts, of a soft 

 texture, spreading, and slightly recurved. The 

 cones, which are small, are numerous, and arranged 

 along the twigs in rows more or less regular. In 

 their young state they vary in colour from green- 

 ish white to bright red, and when ripe are brown, 

 being formed of overlapping scales, which are 

 not united into a compact woody mass, but are 

 detached at the edges. 



Though it possesses little claim to pictu- 

 resque beauty, — at least, in its British garb,— it 

 must be acknowledged," says Wordsworth, that 

 the Larch, till it has outgrown the size of a shrub, 

 shews, when looked at singly, some elegance in 

 form and appearance, especially in spring, deco- 

 rated as it then is by the pink tassels of its blos- 

 soms; but, as a tree, it is less than any other 

 pleasing. Its branches (for boughs it has none) 

 have no variety in the youth of the tree, and little 

 dignity even when it attains its full growth. 

 Leaves it cannot be said to have ; and conse- 

 quently it affords neither shade nor shelter. In 

 spring the Larch becomes green long before the 

 native trees ; and its green is so peculiar and 

 vivid, that finding nothing to harmonize with it 

 wherever it comes forth, a disagreeable speck is 

 produced. In summer, when all the other trees 

 are in their pride, it is of a dingy, lifeless hue ; in 

 autumn of a spiritless unvaried yellow ; and in 

 winter, it is still more lamentably distinguished 

 from every other deciduous tree of the forest; 

 for they seem only to sleep, but the Larch ap- 

 pears absolutely dead." 



