cone. Scales in four to five spiral rows, nine to ten scales in each row, about 4 inch broad and long, convex from side to side but flattened longitudinally, with the apex usually retuse, often emarginate or rounded; margin thin, entire, not bevelled, and neither inflexed nor recurved; outer surface light brown pubescent, the pubescence most marked towards the base. Bracts oblong, widest at the base, truncate or rounded at the apex, with a short mucro extending about half-way up the scale. Seeds in shallow depressions on the scale, with wings narrowly divergent and extending almost quite to its upper and outer margin; body of the seed 1⁄6 inch long, wing short and broad, widest near the base; seed with wing less than ½ inch long; wing 1⁄5 inch broad.
Varieties
The flowers of the common larch are occasionally white in colour.[1] This occurs both in the wild state and in cultivated trees, as at Arley Castle.
Various kinds of weeping larch have been found wild or have originated in cultivation: and some have been propagated by grafting. Var. pendula, Lawson, is noted by Loudon, who states that there were large trees of this kind at Dunkeld, which had been raised from Tyrolese seed. In this form there is an erect leader, and the branches are spreading or even ascending, the branchlets being very slender, elongated, and quite pendulous. In another form of weeping larch the habit is quite different, as it has no tendency to form an erect leader, the trunk remaining short and often divided near the top into several secondary stems that are bent downwards, as are the branches and branchlets. A remarkable example[2] of the latter form, with extremely long slender pendulous branchlets, was growing in 1888 in Mr. Maurice Young's nursery at Milford. Var. pendulina,[3] Regel, Gartenflora, 1871, p. 101, does not seem to be essentially different in habit from this. Loudon[4] mentions a remarkable pendulous larch at Henham Hall, Suffolk, which was planted in 1800, and was supported on pillars, the main branches forming a covered alley 80 feet long and 16 feet wide in 1841. I am informed by Mr. Simpson, gardener at Henham Hall, that this tree is now in good health, the tall shrubs which surrounded it having been cleared away on one side some three years ago, since when it has made surprising growth. At three feet from the ground it measures 8 feet 2 inches in girth, and at about eight feet forms an angle, and extends laterally for a great distance, being supported on pillars and cross pieces which form a pergola 140 feet long, 8 feet high, and 10 to 14 feet wide, which is almost completely covered by its branches, and will shortly require extension. In a note at Kew, dated 1882, Sir J. Hooker mentions a weeping European larch at Waterer's nursery, Bagshot, which was 50 feet high and had the habit of Larix Griffithii.
- ↑ Referred to in London Catalogue of Trees, 43 (1730).
- ↑ Well figured in Gard. Chron. iii, 430, 531, Supplementary Illustration (1888). Var. pendula, Lawson, is figured in Gard. Chron. ii. 684, fig. 132 (1887).
- ↑ Cf. Beissner, Nadelholzkunde, 325, fig. 89 (1891).
- ↑ Gard. Mag. 1841, p. 353. Another weeping larch is figured in the same journal, 1839, p. 574.
