Larix laricina, Koch.
Tamarack. Hacmatack. Larch. Juniper.
Habitat and Range.—Low lands, shaded hillsides, borders of ponds; in New England preferring cold swamps; sometimes far up mountain slopes.
Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, west to the Rocky mountains; from the Rockies through British Columbia, northward along the Yukon and Mackenzie systems, to the limit of tree growth beyond the Arctic circle.
Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont,—abundant, filling swamps acres in extent, alone or associated with other trees, mostly black spruce; growing depressed and scattered on Katahdin at an altitude of 4000 feet; Massachusetts,—rather common, at least northward; Rhode Island,—not reported; Connecticut,—occasional in the northern half of the state; reported as far south as Danbury (Fairfield county).
South along the mountains to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; west to Minnesota.
Habit.—The only New England conifer that drops its leaves in the fall; a tree 30-70 feet high, reduced at great elevations to a height of 1-2 feet, or to a shrub; trunk 1-3 feet in diameter, straight, slender; branches very irregular or in indistinct whorls, for the most part nearly horizontal; often ending in long spire-like shoots; branchlets numerous, head conical, symmetrical while the tree is young, especially when growing in open swamps; when old extremely variable, occasionally with contorted or drooping limbs; foliage pale green, turning to a dull yellow in autumn.
Bark.—Bark of trunk reddish or grayish brown, separating at the surface into small roundish scales in old trees, in young trees smooth; season's shoots gray or light brown in autumn.
Winter Buds and Leaves.—Buds small, globular, reddish.