The Larch is a lofty tree, with a very straight tapering trunk
ordinarily attaining a length between 80 and 100 feet, but under very favourable conditions 120 feet, with a girth of bole from 6 to 12 feet. The brown bark is easily separable into thin layers, and the growth of the tree causes it to split into deep longitudinal fissures. The long lower branches are spreading, with a downward tendency, and the tips turned upward again. The twigs are mostly pendulous, and bear long and slender light-green leaves, in bundles of thirty or forty. All the other families of Coniferous trees are evergreen, their leaves lasting for several years; but at the beginning of winter the Larch leaves wither and fall, and the Larch-wood takes on a more lifeless aspect than is assumed by any of our native trees in their leafless condition. But in spring, when the fresh green leaves are just showing in spreading tufts, and the reddish-purple female flowers—Tennyson's "rosy plumelets"—hang brightly from the gaunt branches, the Larch wears an entirely different appearance, and in summer the light grace of branches and foliage makes the Larch a beautiful object. That is, one should say, the trees that grow on the very outer edge of the wood, or, better still, one that has been planted as a specimen tree, where it has room to fling out its arms on all sides without touching anything, and can get the abundant light it needs. The straight rows in the plantation, with every tree at an equal distance from its neighbours, and its lower branches dead, may be very pretty from the timber-merchant's point of view, but one likes to think of the tree as a living thing of beauty rather than as a detail in a factory where scaffold-poles and telegraph-posts are being grown to regulation size and shape.
The brown cones are egg-shaped, little more than an inch in length, the scales with loose edges. The wood is very durable, and it has the great recommendation of being fit for ordinary use when the tree is only forty years old. It is most valuable for those purposes where exposure to all weathers is a necessity, for it endures constant change from wet to dry. Larch-bark is
used for tanning, and Venice turpentine is a product of the tree. Unlike most Conifers, it has the power of sending out new shoots when the branches have been removed close up to the stem.
Larch plantations sometimes present the appearance of death whilst they are still covered with foliage, but the leaves are yellow and twisted. This most frequently occurs in the case of trees between the ages of ten and fourteen years, and is due to the depredations of a leaf-mining caterpillar, which ultimately changes into a minute moth, the Larch-miner (Coleophora laricella). It feeds in the interior of the Larch-needles, and therefore is beyond the reach of destruction, except by felling and burning affected trees, to prevent the spread of the pest. Its ravages keep the tree in ill-health, and apparently prepare the way for the deadly attack of another small enemy, known as the Larch Canker—the fungus Peziza willkommii. Sickly trees are also liable to the attentions of a Wood-wasp (Sirex juvencus), whose appearance is usually the cause of a little terror in nervous persons. It has two pairs of smoky transparent wings, and its stout, straight, blue body terminates in a long slender point. Its large white grub spends two or three years tunnelling towards the heart of the tree and out to the bark again, but rarely attacks sound trees. It sometimes makes its appearance in a house from wood that has been used for building purposes.
The Silver Fir (Abies pectinata).
Evelyn has left on record the fact that a two-year-old specimen of the Silver Fir was planted in Harefield Park, near Uxbridge, in the year 1603, and this is usually regarded as the date of its introduction to England, though the evidence is by no means conclusive. Its home is in the mountain regions of Central and Southern Europe. Its highest range