Family Pinaceæ
The larch is the only native Northern genus of the pine family which loses its leaves in winter; all the other native genera are evergreens. There is one indigenous species, and one from Europe which is cultivated even more commonly than the American tree.
American Larch; Tamarack or Hackmatack Larix americana
A large tree, 50 to 100 feet high. The bark is rough with small, flat scales. The stems are pliable, and are covered with knobby buds. The cones are small, not more than half an inch long.
In Massachusetts the larch does not attain a great height, but in cold Northern swamps it grows to be a large tree. It is not dependent on a wet situation, but grows well after being transplanted into upland soil. Its growth is rapid, and it is often chosen for “quick effects” in landscape gardening,—a choice which is to be regretted for the most part, as few trees have so little beauty as the larch.
During a brief interval in the early spring, when the first young leaves fringe the branches in delicate green, this tree is really lovely, but after that there is little to attract us in its stiff, formal outline and dark foliage, and in winter it is most unprepossessing.
The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and very durable. It is used for the knees of vessels and ship timbers, for posts, telegraph poles, and railway ties.
The generic name, Larix, comes from the Celtic word lar, meaning fat, and was given to this genus on account of the resin produced by the tree. The larch is found throughout the Northeastern States.
European Larch Larix europæa
A large tree, 80 to 100 feet high. The branches are more pendulous, and the cones are twice as large as those of our native species.
The cones of both the American and European larches hang on the branches through the winter, and as those of the European are an inch or more long and about as broad, while those of the American are half that size, the trees are easily distinguished from each other. Even in the accompanying photographs this difference is discernible.
EUROPEAN LARCH
Larix europæa
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At one time in England the plan of introducing the larch into the forests bordering the English lakes was under consideration, and this greatly disturbed the poet Wordsworth, who was keenly alive to the distressing effects of inharmonious and inappropriate tree planting. In “A Description of the Scenery of the Lakes,” he points out the fact that it is impossible for trees which terminate in a spike, like that of the larch, to blend together and form masses of wood; that if thousands to tens of thousands are added, the appearance is still the same, a collection of separate individual trees, obstinately presenting themselves as such, and which, from whatever point they are looked at, if but seen may be counted upon the fingers. He goes on to express his dislike of the larch in the following words “As a tree it is less than any other pleasing; its branches (for boughs it has none) have no variety in the youth of this tree, and little dignity even when it attains its full growth; leaves it cannot be said to have, consequently 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 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 appears absolutely dead.”
Many old stories are in existence concerning the durability and incombustibility of the wood of this tree. It is said that Julius Cæsar wished to set fire to a wooden tower before the gates of a castle, in the Alps, which he was besieging; that he heaped up logs of larch wood around it, but was utterly unable to make them burn,—“robusta larix igni impenetrabile lignum.” Evelyn, one of the first English writers on trees, gives an account of a ship made of larch wood and cypress which was found in the Numidian Sea, twelve fathoms under water, and which, though it had lain fourteen hundred years submerged, was yet quite hard and sound.
Exaggerated as these accounts may seem, the fact remains that the wood is extremely valuable, and what the larch lacks in grace and beauty as an ornamental tree it makes up in its merits as a useful one. Thus even among trees there is a just law of compensation.
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