The bark of the larch has been introduced into pharmacy, being given, generally in the form of an alcoholic tincture, in chronic bronchitic affections and internal haemorrhages. It contains, in addition to tannin, a peculiar principle called larixin, which may be obtained in a pure state by distillation from a concentrated infusion of the bark; it is a colourless substance in long crystals, with a bitter and astringent taste, and a faint acid reaction; hence some term it larixinic acid.
The European larch has long been introduced into the United States, where, in suitable localities, it flourishes as luxuriantly as in Britain. Plantations have been made in America with an economic view, the tree growing much faster, and producing good timber at an earlier age than the native hackmatack (or tamarack), while the wood is less ponderous, and therefore more generally applicable.
The genus is represented in the eastern parts of North America by the hackmatack (L. americana), of which there are several varieties, two so well marked that they are by some botanists considered specifically distinct. In one (L. microcarpa) the cones are very small, rarely exceeding ½ in. in length, of a roundish-oblong shape; the scales are very few in number, crimson in the young state, reddish-brown when ripe; the tree much resembles the European larch in general appearance but is of more slender growth; its trunk is seldom more than 2 ft. in diameter and rarely above 80 ft. high; this form is the red larch, the épinette rouge of the French Canadians. The black larch (L. pendula) has rather larger cones, of an oblong shape, about ¾ in. long, purplish or green in the immature state, and dark brown when ripe, the scales somewhat more numerous, the bracts all shorter than the scales. The bark is dark bluish-grey, smoother than in the red larch, on the trunk and lower boughs often glossy; the branches are more or less pendulous and very slender.
The red larch grows usually on higher and drier ground, ranging from the Virginian mountains to the shores of Hudson Bay; the black larch is found often on moist land, and even in swamps. The hackmatack is one of the most valuable timber trees of America; it is in great demand in the ports of the St Lawrence for shipbuilding. It is far more durable than any of the oaks of that region, is heavy and close-grained, and much stronger, as well as more lasting, than that of the pines and firs of Canada. In many parts all the finer trees have been cut down, but large woods of it still exist in the less accessible districts; it abounds especially near Lake St John, Quebec, and in Newfoundland is the prevalent tree in some of the forest tracts; it is likewise common in Maine and Vermont. In the timber and building yards the “red” hackmatack is the kind preferred, the produce, probably, of L. microcarpa; the “grey” is less esteemed; but the varieties from which these woods are obtained cannot always be traced with certainty. Several fine specimens of the red larch exist in English parks, but its growth is much slower than that of L. europaea; the more pendulous forms of L. pendula are elegant trees for the garden. The hackmatacks might perhaps be grown with advantage in places too wet for the common larch.
In western America a larch (L. occidentalis) occurs more nearly resembling L. europaea. The leaves are short, thicker and more rigid than in any of the other larches; the cones are much larger than those of the hackmatacks, egg-shaped or oval in outline; the scales are of a fine red in the immature state, the bracts green and extending far beyond the scales in a rigid leaf-like point. The bark of the trunk has the same reddish tint as that of the common larch of Europe. It is the largest of all larches and one of the most useful timber trees of North America. Some of the trees are 250 ft. high and 6 to 8 ft. in diameter. The wood is the hardest and strongest of all the American conifers; it is durable and adapted for construction work or household furniture.
LARCHER, PIERRE HENRI (1726-1812), French classical scholar and archaeologist, was born at Dijon on the 12th of October 1726. Originally intended for the law, he abandoned it for the classics. His (anonymous) translation of Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirrhoë (1763) marked him as an excellent Greek scholar. His attack upon Voltaire’s Philosophie de l’historie (published under the name of l’Abbé Bazin) created considerable interest at the time. His archaeological and mythological Mémoire sur Vénus (1775), which has been ranked with similar works of Heyne and Winckelmann, gained him admission to the Académie des Inscriptions (1778). After the imperial university was founded, he was appointed professor of Greek literature (1809) with Boissonade as his assistant. He died on the 22nd of December 1812. Larcher’s best work was his translation of Herodotus (1786, new ed. by L. Humbert, 1880) on the preparation of which he had spent fifteen years. The translation itself, though correct, is dull, but the commentary (translated into English, London, 1829, new ed. 1844, by W. D. Cooley) dealing with historical, geographical and chronological questions, and enriched by a wealth of illustration from ancient and modern authors, is not without value.
See J. F. Boissonade, Notice sur la vie et les écrits de P. L. (1813); F. A. Wolf, Literarische Analecten, i. 205; D. A. Wyttenbach, Philomathia, iii. (1817).