Seeds lying on the scale in minute depressions, with their wings only slightly divergent and not reaching to its upper margin, 1⁄7 inch long; wing 1⁄3 inch long, broadest just above the seed. (A.H.)
Distribution
The American larch is found in the United States from North Pennsylvania, Northern Indiana and Illinois, and Central Minnesota through the New England States, where, however, it is only found in cold and swampy places. In Newfound- land, Labrador, and the eastern provinces of Canada it occupies swampy ground, and extends from York Factory on Hudson Bay as far as Fort Churchill, 67° 30’ N., and west to Athabasca and Peace river districts, and in Alberta where it has been found forty miles S.W. of Edmonton.!. Northwards it extends to the border of the barren lands. Mr. J.M. Macoun informs me that it was found by Mr. Camsell in the angle between the Snake river and the upper part of Peel river. This place is just within the Yukon district. He also states that it extends westward twenty-two miles up the Dease river, and northward along the upper Liard river to lat. 61° 30’. He has heard several people who have been on the Yukon speak of the larch, so that it must be quite common in some parts, though no definite data are as yet given.
The tamarack, as it is called in most parts of N. America, is a tree which | know but little in a state of nature, and which never seems to have received the attention from foresters which it deserves; for though it nowhere attains the size of the common larch, it seems able to thrive in undrained and swampy ground where that would die; and though a slow-growing tree in comparison with the common larch, its timber has the same valuable qualities as others of the genus.
Henry saw this species in Minnesota in 1906. On the Cass Lake Forest Reserve it occurs in the swampy ground between the pine-covered sand-dunes, in company with balsam fir, Thuya, black and white spruce, birch, and willow. The largest that he saw measured 81 feet by 4 feet 7 inches. The trees are remarkable for their buttressed roots, which branch and extend close to the surface and even above ground for as much as 6 feet. Seedlings were numerous in felled areas near Erskine, where the larch remaining uncut, occurs in swamps either pure or mixed only with birch. They grow very rapidly in the wet ground, taking root in mossy elevated patches and not in the water of the swamps; and averaged to feet high at seven years old, and were making leaders of 1 to 2 feet annually. He saw no stumps larger than 2 feet in diameter, and the tree in Minnesota rarely attains a greater size than 80 feet by 6 feet. In Garden and Forest, 1890, p. 60, there is, however, mention of a tamarack in Minnesota, which measured 7 feet 8 inches in girth and was estimated at 125 feet high.
In most parts of New England and over the greater part of British North America the tamarack is a well-known tree, but rarely attains any great size. The average in the neighbourhood of Ottawa is not over 50 to 60 feet, but when the tree is planted on drier, better land it will grow faster and attain 80 feet or more. I noticed that though it seeds freely the seedlings require more light than
Bell in Scottish Geogr. Mag. xi. 283.
