reddish, glabrous. Terminal buds sharply conical, resinous, glabrous, the lowermost scales subulately pointed. Lateral buds ovoid, glabrous, resinous, directed slightly forwards. Apical buds of the short shoots conical, with loose scales, surrounded at the base by a ring of pubescence.
Leaves glaucous, about 11⁄4 inch long, rounded at the apex; upper surface flattened, with two bands of stomata, variable in the number of lines, often two to four in each band on leaves of the long shoots, usually one to two irregular lines on leaves of the short shoots; lower surface deeply keeled, with two conspicuous bands of stomata, each of five lines.
Staminate flowers ovoid, sessile, smaller than in L. europea. Pistillate flowers ovoid, pinkish ; bracts all recurved, about 1⁄5 inch long, oblong, broadest at the base, truncate, and scarcely emarginate at the apex, brownish with pink margins, mucro about 1⁄20 inch long. Cones shortly ovoid, broad in proportion to their length, 1 to 11⁄4 inch long, readily distinguished by the thin reflected upper margins of the scales, of which there are four to five spiral rows of eight to nine in each row. Scales almost orbicular, about 2⁄5 inch long and wide; upper margin very thin, reflected, truncate or slightly emarginate ; outer surface furrowed, slightly pubescent. Seeds in very shallow depressions on the scale, their wings slightly divergent and extending to its upper margin; seed about 1⁄6 inch long, with wing 2⁄5 inch long.
A stunted form, growing on the higher parts of Fuji-yama, was collected by John Gould Veitch, and was considered to be a new species by A. Murray;* and is recognised as a variety by Sargent. According to Mayr, it scarcely deserves to be ranked as a variety, as it only differs in being a low tree, with smaller cones than usual, which are only 2 inch in diameter and globular in shape. (A.H.)
Introduction
It was introduced by J.G. Veitch in 1861 from seeds which he procured during his visit to Japan. Nothing is said by Kent as to the number of plants raised and sent out at that time, but probably the number was small, as we know of few trees as old as forty-five years. Larger importations were made later, and the tree grew so well generally that it is now being planted almost everywhere, and some of the older trees have produced good seed for ten years or more.
Distribution
In Japan this larch grows naturally on the slopes of volcanic mountains in a sandy soil at 4000 to 6000 feet elevation, in a climate very much warmer and moister in summer, drier in winter, and less liable to late frosts than England.
1 Larix japonica, A. Murray, Pines and Firs of Japan, 94 (1863).
Larix leptolepis, var. minor, A. Murray, Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. ii. 633, f. 155 (1862).
Larix leptolepis, var. Murrayana, Maximowicz, Ind. Sem. Hort. Petrop. 1866, p. 3.
Larix japonica, var. microcarpa, Carrière, Conif. 354 (1867).
Larix Kaempferi, var. minor, Sargent, Silva N. Amer, xii, 2, adnot. 2 (1898).
Abies leptolepis, Lindley, Gard. Chron. 1861, p. 23.
