LARIX DAHURICA
- Larix dahurica, Turczaninow, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. xi. 101 (1838); Trautvetter, Pl. Imag. Fl. Russ. 48, t. 32 (1844); Regel, Gartenflora, xx. 105, t. 684 (1871); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 390 (1900).
- Larix pendula, Salisbury,! Trans. Linn. Soc. viii. 314 (1807); Lawson, Agric. Man. 387 (1836); Forbes, Pinet. Woburnense, 137, t. 46 (1839).
- Larix europæa, De Candolle, var. dahurica, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2352 (1838).
- Larix americana, Michaux, var. pendula, Loudon, op. cit. 2400.
- Pinus pendula, Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 369 (1789); Lambert, Pinus, i. 56, t. 36 (1803).
- Pinus dahurica, Fischer, ex Turczaninow, loc. cit.
- Abies pendula, Poiret, Lamarck’s Dict. vi. 514 (1804).
- Abies Gmelini, Ruprecht, Beit. Pflanz. Russ. Reich. ii. 56 (1845).
A tree attaining in Saghalien 140 feet to 150 feet in height, but in Siberia usually much smaller. Bark scaling in broad, thin, irregularly quadrangular plates. Young branchlets slender, glabrous, becoming pinkish at the end of the season, shining brown in the second year; older branchlets yellowish grey. Shoots girt at the base by a sheath of the previous season’s bud-scales, with no ring of pubescence visible. Short shoots slender, dark brown or blackish, glabrous. Terminal buds globose, glabrous, resinous, with the basal scales subulately pointed. Lateral buds hemispherical, resinous, dark brown, glabrous. Apical buds broadly conical and surrounded by a ring of brown pubescence. Leaves light green, similar to those of L. europæa in size and arrangement of the stomata, with the tips usually blunter than in that species.
Staminate flowers sessile, smaller than those of the European larch. Pistillate flowers ovoid, red, with the bracts and scales more closely appressed than in the common larch, making the flower narrower and shorter; bracts slightly recurved, 4 inch long, oblong, with a shallow notch at the upper margin between two pointed projections ; mucro short, less than 1⁄12 inch long.
Cones variable in size, dependent upon the number of the scales, 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 inch long, cylindrical, slightly narrowed at the apex, where the scales gape open in the ripe cone, composed of three to four spiral rows of scales, six to eight in each row, bracts concealed. Scales longer than broad, about 1⁄2 inch long; upper margin rounded, truncate, or slightly emarginate, bevelled, slightly denticulate, not recurved ; outer surface glabrous,’ channelled, shining light brown when ripe. Bracts not exserted, about 1⁄5 inch long, much shorter than the scales. Seeds lying upon the scale in slight depressions, their wings narrowly divergent and not extending quite to its upper margin. Seed about 1⁄6 inch long; together with its wing scarcely 1⁄2 inch long ; wing broadest just above the seed.
The Dahurian larch is a native of eastern Siberia, Manchuria, Corea, and
1 Though this is the oldest correct name under the genus, I have not adopted it, as it has been erroneously applied to the American larch, and its use now would cause considerable confusion.
2 Cultivated specimens, as those from Boynton and Murthly Castle, occasionally have slightly pubescent scales; but the cones and seeds in all other respects are typical of L. dahurica.
