the experimental forestry station near Munich, where the thermometer goes down to 15° Fahr. below zero, and seedlings only four years old are already 5½ feet high. They resembled Larix americana more than L. leptolepis in the blackish colour of their young shoots. Dr. Mayr says that it is the first larch to become green in Europe, though in my nursery seedlings of the Altai and north Russian larches are both earlier. He says that its dark shoots have gained it the name of black larch from visitors to his nursery, and that in the park of The Duke of Inn- and Knyphausen at Liitetsburg in east Friesland it grows faster than any other species of larch, being 6 metres high at the age of seven years.”
So far as our very short experience of this tree in England enables us to judge, it is likely to thrive well, at any rate in its youth. Several young trees which are in my nursery grow fast, and ripen their growths earlier than common larch. Some seed received from Japan in June 1906 germinated very quickly, and made healthy
little plants the same season. It should be tried especially in the wetter parts of Great Britain. (H.J.E.)
LARIX LEPTOLEPIS
- Larix leptolepis, Endlicher,? Syn. Conif. 130 (1847); Gordon, Pinetum, 128 (1858); Mayr, Abiet. Jap. Reiches, 63, t. 5, f 14 (1890), and Fremdländ. Wald- u. Parkbäume, 302 (1906); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 397 (1900).
- Larix japonica, Carrière, Conif. 272 (1855).
- Larix Kaempferi, Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 2, adnot. 2 (1898).
- Pinus Larix, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 275 (1784) (not Linnæus).
- Pinus Kaempferi, Lambert, Pinus, ii. preface, p. v (1824).
- Abies Kaempferi, Lindley, Penny Cycl. i. 34 (1833).
- Abies leptolepis, Siebold et Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. ii. 12, t. 105 (1842).
- Pinus leptolepis, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 130 (1847).
A tree attaining in Japan a height of 100 feet and a girth of 12 feet. Bark of native trees, according to Mayr, similar to that of the European larch, the freshly ex- foliating scales being more brownish than red; but in cultivated trees in England the bark begins to scale very early, peeling off usually in large long strips and giving a red appearance to the trunk. Young branchlets glaucous, usually covered with a dense, erect, brown pubescence, but occasionally almost glabrous, only a few brown hairs being present. Branchlets of the second year reddish with a glaucous tinge, retaining some pubescence or quite glabrous. Base of the shoots girt by a sheath of the previous season's bud-scales, the uppermost of which are loose and reflected, with no ring of pubescence visible. Short shoots stouter than in the common larch,
1 In Mitt. Deutsche Dendr. Ges. 1906, p. 27, the age of this tree is stated erroneously as twenty-five to thirty years. Its height in 1906 is given as 9 metres.
2 Pinus leptolepis was the name preferred by Endlicher; but he quotes Larix leptolepis, Hort., as a synonym ; and as this is the first publication of Larix leptolepis, Endlicher is responsible for the name, and it is credited to him; and being the first published name under the correct genus is adopted by us. Moreover, it is the name by which this species is universally known; and the adoption of Sargent’s name, Larix Kaempferi, would cause great confusion, as this has been used for Pseudolarix Kaempferi, the golden larch of China. The Japanese larch, though known to Kaempfer and Thunberg in the eighteenth century and mentioned by Lambert, was first described by Lindley in 1833.
