Saghalien. According to Herder[1] it occurs in the northern Ural range at lat. 68°, and at Nijni Kolymsk in north-eastern Siberia at the same latitude; but it is probable that in the former locality he may be referring to Larix sibirica, and in the latter case to the form now distinguished by Mayr as Larix Cajanderi. It is uncertain whether the larch which occurs in Kamtchatka is L. dahurica or a distinct species.[2]
Larix dahurica is very plentiful on the Stanovoi mountains, and along the southern half of the coast of the sea of Ochotsk. Middendorff found it on the Aldan mountains up to 4000 feet elevation. According to Komarov[3] it forms woods in moist situations in the mountain valleys throughout the Amur, Ussuri, S. Ussuri, and Kirin provinces of Manchuria and in northern Corea. Korshinksy[4] states that it is frequent in the whole Amur region, forming forests in the mountains of the upper Amur and Bureja, but that it does not occur in the plain between the Zeja and Bureja.
It occurs in Saghalien, in the northern half of which it grows mixed with common birch and attains a great size, a fallen tree in the forest having been measured by Hawes[5] as 145 feet in length, Elsewhere it forms part of the coniferous forest of the island, being mixed with Abies sachalinensis, Picea ajanensis, and Picea Glehnii. It also occurs on the island of Shintar.
Elwes saw at Wellesley, Mass., a young larch raised in the Arnold Arboretum from seed received at Petersburg as L. dahurica, which had a peculiar growth of the branches, which, according to Prof. Sargent, is seen in all the trees of the same origin. At the commencement of each season's growth the new wood made a distinct angle, turning upwards a little, so that in four years' growth it became erect. Prof. Sargent states that he saw many larches in eastern Siberia which he considered to be L. dahurica, and that they all had the same habit, The young trees at Boston have not yet borne cones, but the main stems were making annual growths about 2 feet long, and the tree seemed more at home in that climate than in England.
History
Pinus pendula was first described by Aiton in 1789; and Solander's[6] MS., on which the description was founded, states that the tree is a native of Newfoundland, with leaves longer and cones shorter than the European larch. A sheet of specimens preserved in the British Museum bears in Salisbury's handwriting "Pinus pendula"; three specimens are unmistakable L. dahurica; the fourth, a small branch, is L. americana.
Lambert's figure of P. pendula, published in 1803, is certainly L. dahurica, the drawing being made from specimens obtained from a tree in Collinson's garden at Mill Hill which was planted in 1739, the supposed first introduction of the species. Lambert also figures and describes, as a distinct species, P. microcarpa, identical
- ↑ Act. Hort. Petrop. xii. 98 (1892).
- ↑ Larix kamtschatica, Carr.
- ↑ Floræ Manshuriæ, i. 190 (1901).
- ↑ Act. Hort. Petrop. xii, 424 (1892).
- ↑ Uttermost East, 105 (1903).
- ↑ According to Loudon, op. cit. 2401, Solander's description was taken from the tree at Mill Hill, which, according to Lambert's figure, must have been L. dahurica.
