LARIX EUROPÆA, Common Larch
- Larix europæa, De Candolle! in Lamarck, Fl. Franç. 3rd ed. iii. 277 (1805); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv, 2350 (1838); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 140 (1887); Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 555 (1897); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 391 (1900).
- Larix decidua, Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 1 (1768); Kirchner, Loew, u. Schröter, Lebengesch. Blütenpfl. Mitteleuropas, 155 (1904).
- Larix pyramidalis, Salisbury, Trans. Linn. Soc. viii. 314 (1807).
- Larix vulgaris, Fischer, ex Spach, Hist. Vég. xi. 432 (1842).
- Larix Larix, Karsten, Pharm. Med. Bot. 326 f. 157 (1882).
- Pinus Larix, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 1001 (1753).
- Pinus læta, Salisbury, Prod. 399 (1796).
- Abies Larix, Poiret in Lamarck, Dict. vi. 511 (1804).
A tree attaining 100 to 150 feet in height? and 10 to 15 feet in girth. Bark of young stems and branches smooth and grey; on older stems (twenty years and upwards) fissuring and scaling off in thin irregular plates, exposing the reddish cortex below ; at the base of old trunks in the Alps becoming extraordinarily thick, a foot or more. Young branchlets slender, glabrous, greyish yellow, with linear pulvini separated by narrow grooves; in the second and third year shining yellow with more elevated pulvini, at the apices of which are the scars of the fallen solitary leaves ; base of the shoot girt by a sheath of the bud-scales of the previous season, within which is visible a ring of pubescence. Short shoots dark brown, with rings of pubescence marking each year’s growth. Terminal buds small, globose, resinous, with glabrous scales, the lowermost of which are subulately pointed. Lateral buds hemispherical, glabrous, broadly conical, surrounded at the base by a dense ring of hairs.
Leaves light green, soft in texture; those solitary on the long shoots shorter, broader, and more acuminate than those in the tufts, the latter differing in length, the longest about 11⁄2 inch long, and rounded at the apex ; upper surface flat or rounded, with one line of stomata on each side; lower surface deeply keeled, with two to three lines of stomata on each side.
Male flowers sessile, ovoid, 1⁄5 to 2⁄5 inch long. Pistillate flowers, reddish or occasionally whitish, ovoid, about 1⁄2 inch long; bracts, with their mucronate apices pointing upwards and outwards and not reflected or recurved, about 1⁄4 inch long, oblong, widest at the base, deeply notched above between two pointed projections ; mucro about 1⁄12 inch long.
Cones ovoid, with the tips of the bracts slightly exserted, 11⁄4 to 11⁄2 inch long,’ the terminal scales small and not gaping but closing the rounded or flattened apex of the
1 We adopt the name Larix europæa, although it is not the oldest one, because it has been in general use for over a
century. According to a note at Kew of Alph. de Candolle the Flore Française, 3rd ed., was published in reality in 1805,
and not in 1815, as it is printed in the volume at Kew.
2 Kerner, Nat. Hist. Plants, Eng. trans., i. 722 (1898), gives the greatest certified height of the larch as 53.7 metres, equal to 176 feet ; and this refers to a tree growing in Silesia, mentioned by Mathieu, loc. cit. 556.
3 In the Museum at Florence there are specimens from Courmeyeur, in the Piedmontese Alps, with cones two inches in length, the largest which I have seen, and remarkable for the dense velvety pubescence of their scales.
