LARIX POTANINI, Chinese Larch
- Larix Potanini, Batalin, Act. Hort. Petrop. xiii. 385 (1894); Masters, Gard. Chron. xxxix. 178, f. 68 (1906).
- Larix thibetica, Franchet, Jour. de Bot. 1899, p. 262.
- Larix Griffithii, Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxvi. 558 (1902). (Not Hooker.)
A tree attaining in western China a height of 70 feet and a girth of 6 feet. Young branchlets bright yellow, with a scattered pubescence, densest near the base of the shoot, which is girt by a sheath of the previous season’s bud-scales, showing within a ring of pubescence. Buds ovoid, with ciliate scales.
Leaves slender, up to an inch in length, ending in a sharp cartilaginous point, tetragonal in section, keeled above and below, with two bands of stomata, each of two lines, on both the upper and lower surfaces.
Staminate flowers, 1⁄4 inch long, on a short but distinct stalk. Pistillate flowers ovoid, narrow and rounded at the apex ; bracts closely appressed, on one side of the young cone with their tips pointing towards its apex, on the other side reflected about their middle with their apices pointing towards the base of the cone, ovate or oblong, rounded and entire at the apex, which is prolonged into a short mucro. The bracts in the pistillate flower, described above as seen in herbarium specimens, are probably all reflected at first; and gradually by the growth of the scale assume the erect position.
Cones cylindrical, rounded at the apex, 13⁄4 inch long, with the scales and bracts pointing upwards and outwards, or more or less spreading. Scales small, about 1⁄3 inch long, almost orbicular, reddish brown, pubescent on the lower part of the outer surface; upper margin rounded or truncate, entire, thin, slightly inflected, not bevelled. Bract extending beyond the scale, exserted with the mucro about 1⁄4 inch. Seeds in slight depressions on the scale, with their wings widely divergent and not reaching to its upper margin. Seed about 1⁄8 inch long; seed with wing 1⁄3 inch long ; wing broadest just above the seed.
Larix Potanini has been collected in western China by Potanin, Prince Henry of Orleans, Pratt, and Wilson, who found it in the neighbourhood of the Szechuan- Thibetan frontier near Tachienlu at 7500 to 11,000 feet above sea-level. The same species, according to Franchet, was probably collected by Père Delavay farther south on the Likiang range in Yunnan at 11,600 feet altitude. Mr. A. Hosie, Consul- General in Szechuan, informs me that forty miles north-east of Tachienlu, there is a pure forest of this larch between 11,000 and 12,000 feet elevation on the southern slope of the mountain range, and extending for about a mile. It consists of fine straight trees, which he estimated to be about 70 feet high. At lower altitudes the larch gives place to silver fir and birch. The tree is known to the Chinese as ‘“hung-sha,” red fir, and produces the most valuable coniferous timber in western China.
