with L. americana. He states that cones of both species were sent annually from America to Loddiges, P. pendula under the name of black larch, and P. microcarpa as red larch; and that both kinds were growing in Loddiges's nursery.
Lawson's Manual, published in 1836, gives a careful description of both species, and repeats the information that they are natives of North America.
So far as we know Larix dahurica does not grow in N. America; and no traveller or botanist except Pursh ever claimed to have seen in the eastern part of the continent any species but L. americana. Pursh[1] asserts that L. pendula and L. microcarpa are distinct species, and were seen by him, the former growing in low cedar swamps from Canada to Jersey, the latter occurring about Hudson's Bay and on the high mountains of New York and Pennsylvania. As L. americana varies in the size of the cone, it seems certain that Pursh only saw forms of L. americana. It is very difficult to understand how seeds of L. dahurica from eastern Siberia could have been introduced so early.
Until about 1840 the American origin of L. pendula was unquestioned; and a tree planted in that year at Bayfordbury, and recorded in the planting book as L. pendula, is still living, and is undoubtedly L. dahurica. Larix dahurica was noticed first in Lawson's Manual as a stunted bushy tree, growing poorly, as it was propagated from cuttings or layers; and is stated to have been introduced in 1827. (A.H.)
Remarkable Trees
The finest specimen we know is figured in Plate 106, and is growing on the edge of a grassy drive at Woburn Abbey, where I first noticed its peculiar bark on the occasion of the visit of the Scottish Arboricultural Society to that place in July 1903. None of the members present could name the tree, and on comparing the foliage with the specimens at Kew I came to the conclusion that it must be a tree which is mentioned in the Pinetum Woburnense as Larix pendula, I went to Woburn again on purpose to see it in flower, on 31st March 1905, when the difference in the flowers from those of a pendulous form of the common larch growing close by was evident. But the less rugged bark, which resembles that of a cedar, is the best distinction, and is clearly shown in our illustration. It measured 86 feet high by 6 feet 7 inches in girth in 1905. I have raised a seedling from this tree.
A very similar tree is growing by the side of the entrance drive at Beauport, which from its bark and habit we believe to be of the same origin.
At Bayfordbury the tree planted in 1840 as Larix pendula is now 56 feet high and 5 feet in girth, with a conical stem, and bark scaling in large thin plates. European larches planted near it at the same time are 70 feet high and 5 to 6½ in girth. A tree at Denbies, near Dorking, the seat of Lord Ashcombe, was in 1903 40 feet high and 2 feet in girth. It is said to have been sent to Denbies as Larix Griffithii by Sir Joseph Hooker, but some mistake had evidently been made in the plant that was forwarded from Kew some forty years ago.
- ↑ Fl. Amer. Sept. ii, 645 (1814).
