122 
AMERICAN LARCH. 
the Red Cedar. According to my father’s observations in his journey to 
Hudson’s Bay, it is only beyond the St. Lawrence, particularly near Lake 
St. John and the Great and the Little Lake Mistassin, that it begins to 
abound and to form masses of woods, some of which are several miles in 
extent. I have been informed that it is profusely multiplied in Newfound- 
land, in nearly the same latitude. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the 
coldest and gloomiest exposures in the mountainous tracts of Virginia, are 
the limit of its appearance toward the south : but it is rare in these States, 
and in Lower Jersey, in the vicinity of New York, it is seen only in the 
swamps of White Cedar, with which it is scantily mingled. The numerous 
descendants of the Dutch in New Jersey call it Tamarack. 
I have remarked that in Vermont and the District of Maine, the Larch 
grows only in low and moist places, and never on uplands, as about Hud- 
son’s Bay and in Newfoundland; hence we may conclude that the climate 
of the northern extremity of the United States is too mild for’ its consti- 
tution. 
The American Larch, like that of Europe, is a magnificent vegetable, 
with a straight slender trunk 80 or 100 feet in height and 2 or 3 feet in 
diameter. Its numerous branches, except near the summit, are horizontal 
or declining. The bark is smooth and polished on the trunk and longer 
limbs, and rugged on the smaller branches. The leaves are flexible, shorter 
than those of the European species, and collected in hunches ; they are 
shed in the fall and renewed in the spring. T-he flowers, like those of the 
Pines, are separate upon the same tree ; the male aments, which appear 
before the leaves, are small, oblong and scaly, with two yellow anthers 
under each scale ; the female floAvers are also disposed in aments, and are 
composed of floral leaves covering two ovaries, which in process of time 
become small, erect, scaly cones 3 or 4 lines long. At the base of each 
scale lie two minute winged seeds. On some stocks the cones are violet- 
colored in the spring instead of green ; hut this is an accidental variation, 
for the trees are in no other respect peculiar. 
The wood of the American Larch is superior to any species of Pine or 
Spruce, and unites all the properties which distinguish the European 
species, being exceedingly strong and singularly durable. In Canada it 
is considered as among the most valuable timber, and has no fault except 
its weight. In the District of Maine it is more esteemed than any other 
resinous wood for the knees of vessels, and is always used for this purpose 
when proper pieces can be procured. Turpentine is never extracted from 
it in America, as is done from our native species in Europe. 
The Larch is justly appreciated in the United States, hut it is little 
employed, because it is rare and may be replaced by several resinous trees 
which are cheaper and more abundant. 
Sir A. B. Lambert, in his splendid work upon the Pines, describes two 
