LARCH. 



[74] 



Family: THE CONIFERS [Translator's note: now PINACEAE]. 

 Reproductive system: MONOECY, MONADELPHY. 



The European larch, Larix europcea, Pinus larix, Linn, is one of the most 

 beautiful trees in our Alps, where it grows up to a hundred and twenty feet high. It's 

 pyramidal in shape. When standing apart it has a very large number of branches. They 

 bear thin narrow leaves that are bright green and are arranged in small rosettes. They fall 

 at the onset of winter and reappear in spring. When fully open they appear solitary, 

 forming a double spiral. The flowers are monoecious. The male ones, in rounded sessile 

 catkins, are formed of scales. Beneath each scale there are two sessile anthers in one 

 compartment. The female flowers form an oval catkin composed of thin, colored, 

 somewhat loose bracts that are membranous at the edges and divided lengthwise by a 

 green line with a point that extends beyond the tip. Between each bract a claw-shaped 

 squamule supports two tiny ovaries. The bracts dry up and disappear, but the squamules 

 persist and grow larger. They turn into as many concave tough scales, thinned out at the 

 tip, each one enclosing two monospermous nuts that terminate in a wing. The scales 

 merge to form the fruit or cone which points upward like that of the silver fir 

 [Translator's note: Abies pectinata,]. 



FLOWERS: in March and April. 



RANGE: France, Switzerland. 



NOMENCLATURE. German, larchenbaum. Dutch, lorkenboom. English, common 

 white larch-tree. Russian, listweniza. Polish, modrzew. Tartar, tyt, tut. 



USES. This tree is the source of Venice turpentine, a clear fluid with a bitter taste 

 and a strong unpleasant odor. 



