This larch tree of ours is more sparsely branched than the larch of Europe. It looks ragged and unhappy when planted on our lawns. It is at its best in the cold North, where it grows in dense crowds, and the tall trunks are stripped free from limbs well towards the tops. These straight shafts are cut for telegraph poles, railroad ties, and posts. The heavy, resinous wood lasts a long time in the ground.
The larches planted for shade and ornament are of the European species, which thrives in any soil. It has a denser head of branches, and much more luxuriant crown of foliage than our native species. It is a beautiful feathery pyramid of green, distinctly different from other trees. In Europe large forests are grown on the mountain sides, and from these the tallest masts for vessels are obtained. The heavy, resinous wood does not easily take fire as do the pitch pines. The old wooden battle ships were faced with larch wood because of this, and because larch wood is so durable in contact with water. Indeed it has the reputation of outlasting oak, and the wood of all other conifers.
In the woods of the far Northwest, and inland to Montana, the Western larch is one of the mighty forest trees. Six feet in diameter, and 200 feet in height are not uncommon dimensions among these giant larches. These trees are of slow growth, and they stand with their roots in water or in wet soil, though on the mountain side. This is an important lumber tree with wood that has all the good qualities of its family. In Europe the tree is planted for forests, and as an ornamental tree. We cannot grow it in the Eastern United States. It is worth a journey across the continent to see it growing, one of the most magnificent trees in the world.
THE BALD CYPRESS
Travellers in the South pass forests of dark pines, and along the edges of swamps the pines often give way to solid stretches of trees with pale grey trunks, and lettuce green foliage, whose lightness contrasts strangely and beautifully with the solid bank of dark green that roofs the forests of pines. A closer look at these strange trees, which often stand knee-deep in water, is not so easy. At certain seasons of the year, however, these swamps are dry enough so that one may walk dry-shod among them, and so learn to know the bald cypress of the South, one of the most beautiful and interesting of native American trees.
This is the second of the cone-bearing trees which is not an evergreen. The leaves on the new shoots are two-ranked, soft and pale sage green in colour. The stems that bear these plumy leaves bear also scattered single blades. Among them are older twigs, tipped with cones, and bearing branchlets with scale-like leaves scarcely spreading at the tips. These are much smaller than the leaves arranged in two ranks, forming feather-like, leafy branchlets. It is these which are shed, branchlets, and all, in the autumn, and fresh in spring renew the feathery grace of the long, narrow tree top.
The most surprising thing about the bald cypress is the flaring base of the trunk, and the root system which seems too large for the tall but usually narrow top. Knees of cypress rising out of the water from the main roots, are distinguished from stumps by their smooth, conical tops. The base of a great tree often spreads into wide flying buttresses, each hollowed on the inside, but serving with the others to support the hollow-trunked tree. Many a giant of great age stands thus on stilts whose submerged ends are the gnarled roots of the tree. From these rise many smooth, knobbed knees above the surface of the water in the rainy season. By some foresters, humps on the roots are supposed to be necessary to the proper breathing of the roots, submerged under water so large a part of the year. The question of what causes these growths, and of what use they are, is not fully determined.
The cones of the bald cypress are globular, and about the size of an olive. By them the tree declares its relationship to the needle-leaved evergreens. The wood is light and easy to work, but not noticeably resinous. It is used for buildings, and for special parts, such as doors, shingles. It is beautiful when stained, and would be more valuable for interior finish of houses did it not keep the record of each bump and dent, as all soft woods do. Buckets and barrels to contain liquids are largely made of this wood. In railroad ties it proves very durable.
The best and strangest fact about this tree is that though it belongs to the South, and is a swamp tree by preference, it grows large and beautiful in the North, and in soil that is only moderately moist. The parks of Brooklyn have some noble specimens of this bald cypress of the South. They stand, tall, handsome shafts, feathered lightly with their short, drooping side branches, clothed with pale green leaves. There is no peculiarity of spreading trunk or knees to disturb the sod that comes up around the base of the tree. In the autumn the foliage turns yellow, and drops with the larch leaves. Through the winter the globular cones are present to prove this bald cypress a relative of the evergreens, which are its neighbours.