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Genus 28 . Pinus. Pine Tree. Class XXI. Monoecla. 
Order VIII. Monadelphia. 
Species 1. Common White Larch Tree. (Pinus Larix.) 
The common or white Larch Tree is of quick growth, and will rise to the height of fifty feet; 
the branches are slender, and their ends generally hang down. The leaves are long and narrow, in 
clusters from one point, spreading open above like the hairs of a painter’s brush, of a light green, 
and falling off in autumn; in which circumstance this and the preceding differ from all the other 
species of this genus. In the month of April the male flowers appear, disposed in form of small 
cones; the female flowers are collected into egg-shaped obtuse cones, which in some have bright 
purple tops, but in others they are white: this difference is accidental, for seeds taken from either 
will produce plants of both sorts: the cones are about an inch long, and the scales are smooth; 
under each scale two winged seeds are generally lodged. 
There are two other varieties of this tree, one a native of America, the other of Siberia; the 
latter requires a colder climate than England, for the trees are apt to die in summer here, especially 
if they are planted on a dry soil. The cones of this which have been brought to England, seem to 
be in general larger than those of the common sort; but there is so little difference between the 
trees in their characteristic notes, that they cannot be distinguished as different species, though in 
the growth of the trees there is a remarkable difference. 
Mr. Miller mentions another variety from China, which he distinguishes as a species, under the 
name of Larix Chinensis. The cones were sent to Hugh Duke of Northumberland, and the seeds, 
being sown, grew both at Stanwick and in the Chelsea garden. The cones were much larger than those 
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of the common sort, and ended in acute points; the scales were prominent like those of the Scotch 
Pine, and had so little resemblance to those of the Larch, that every one who saw them, imagined 
they belonged to a sort of Pine, and they were sent over under the name of Pine good to keep up 
banks. As the plants made but little progress the first year, they were weak, and casting off their 
leaves in autumn were supposed to be dead, and thus most of them were: lost; but those which 
escaped, afterwards shot out their branches horizontally, spreading close to the ground, and seemed 
to be shrubs, which would never rise upright. They are so hardy, as to thrive in the open air with¬ 
out any protection. 
Pallas thus distinguishes the European Larch from the American. In the latter the branches 
are more slender, with a bark more inclining to yellow, and the scars more slender and clustered; 
the leaves are more tender, narrower, more glaucous, and the outer ones in each bundle shorter; 
cones only one-third of the size, blunt, with scales scarcely exceeding twelve in number, thinner, 
more shining, retuse-emarginate; wings of the seeds straight, more oblong, narrower, and together 
with the seed itself of a more diluted grey colour. 
In the European Larch the bark of the branches is of an ash-coloured grey; the leaves a little 
wider, bright green, all nearly equal, commonly more than forty in a bundle: the cones an inch 
long, with above thirty woody, striated, rounded, entire scales. Seeds brownish grey, with 
subtriangular wings somewhat bent in. In both the cones are 'bent upwards on very short 
peduncles.* 
* Flora Rossica, Vol. I. p. 2. 
