In the Cambridge Botanic Garden there are two trees of this species, one 56 feet high by 5 feet in girth, in 1906. The bark scales off in smaller plates than the common larch, and shows more red-coloured cortex below. The second tree, labelled L. pendula, is grafted at 6 feet up on the common larch, and has its stem bent over at a right angle a few feet higher up.
At Ribston Park, Yorkshire, there is a well-grown tree of L. dahurica which cannot be more than about forty years old, as Major Dent remembers its being planted, though its origin is unknown. It has somewhat pendulous branches and smooth bark without ridges, and measures 71 feet by 5 feet 2 inches. It had both new and old cones on it in 1906.
There are some larches at Boynton, near Bridlington, Yorkshire, which Sir Charles Strickland has always known as red larches, and supposed to have been of American origin, but which I believe, on account of their smoother bark, to be L. dahurica. The best of them is 75 feet by 7 feet 8 inches; another, with a very spreading top, was 9 feet 4 inches in girth; and both had cones from which seedlings have been raised. Sir Charles Strickland has written of these in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1896, pp. 399 and 494. He says that the trees which have been grown at Boynton for eighty or ninety years under the name of red and black larch are the two trees described in Loudon as varieties of Larix americana; and that the red larch is more like the European larch, and in loose, rather wet, sandy soil grows at Boynton as fast and to as large a size, but he does not consider the wood quite as good as that of the common larch; it is more liable to twist and warp, though probably as durable. On drier soils the red larch is much less healthy and vigorous than the common one.
At Murthly Castle there is a row of fifteen trees which were planted about 1881 by Mr. D.F. Mackenzie, who informs me that they were probably from the nursery of Messrs. B. Reid of Aberdeen, but their origin cannot now be traced with certainty. Their habit varies very much, the first one, coming from the Castle, having very pendulous branches and a weeping top, which none of the others possess. The cones also vary somewhat in size and colour, but with one exception—which I believe to be a common larch planted subsequently to replace a dead tree of the original lot—are characteristic of L. dahurica. The trees average 40 to 45 feet high and 3 to 4 feet in girth, and have the bark distinctly smoother and less corrugated than the bark of common larch growing under similar conditions. They are fairly healthy in appearance, with no evidence of having suffered from Peziza, but are bearing cones so freely that I do not expect they will become large trees. Mr. Mackenzie attributes this to their growing on dry, gravelly soil. (H.J.E.)
