Common Names
American larch, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, eastern tamarack, hackmatack (1), mélèze laricin (2).Taxonomic notes
Syn: Pinus laricina DuRoi 1771; Larix alaskensis W. Wight; L. laricina var. alaskensis (W. Wight) Raup (2).Disjunct Alaskan populations of Larix laricina , originally described as Larix alaskensis on the basis of narrower cone scales and bracts, are indistinguishable from other populations of the species (2).
Description
"Trees to 20 m; trunk to 60 cm dbh; crown narrow, branches sparse. Bark of young trees gray, smooth, becoming reddish brown and scaly, inner layer red-purple. Branches horizontal or slightly ascending; twigs orange-brown, glabrous. Buds dark red, subtended by ring of hairlike bracts, glabrous. Leaves of short shoots 1-2 cm × 0.5-0.8 mm, 0.3-0.5 mm thick, keeled abaxially, rounded adaxially, pale blue-green; resin canals 10-20 µm from margins. Seed cones 1-2 × 0.5-1 cm, usually on curved stalks 2-5 × 2-2.5 mm, sometimes sessile on long shoots; scales 10-30, margins entire, brown-strigose to -tomentose at base; bracts mucronate or tipped by awn to 1 mm, hidden by mature scales, at first dark red to violet, later turning yellow-brown. Pollen 53-65 µm diam. Seeds with bodies 2-3 mm, wings 4-6 mm. 2 n =24" (2).Range
Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland; France: St. Pierre and Miquelon; USA: Alaska, Minnesotsa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine at 0-1200 m in boreal forests, typically in wet, poorly drained sphagnum bogs and muskegs, also on moist upland mineral soils (2). See also (6). Grows as krummholz at the arctic (and locally, alpine) timberline.Big Tree
Height 33 m, dbh 110 cm, crown spread 14 m, in Phoenix, MD (3).Oldest
"[A]pparently the oldest reported" is 371 years, a crossdated date (5).Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
The strong durable wood is used for railway ties, pilings, and posts; it formerly was used for boat construction. Slow-growing trees develop wood with high resin content, making it decay resistant but limiting its value as pulpwood. The bark contains a tannin that has been used for tanning leather. Although tamarack is the most rapidly growing boreal conifer under favorable conditions, it is of little commercial interest because of insect and disease problems and its poor pulping properties (2).Observations
Easily seen in boreal forest habitats through the northern portions of its range, for example in Denali National Park (AK), Riding Mountain National Park (Man.) and Acadia National Park (ME).Remarks
Citations
(1) Peattie 1950 .(2) William H. Parker at the Flora of North America web site .
(3) American Forests 1996 .
(4) Payette and Gagnon 1985 .
(5) S. Payette and R. Gagnon. 1979. Tree-line dynamics in Ungava peninsula, northern Quebec. Holarctic Ecology 2: 239-248.
(6) Robert S. Thompson, Katherine H. Anderson and Patrick J. Bartlein. 1999. Atlas of Relations Between Climatic Parameters and Distributions of Important Trees and Shrubs in North America. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1650 A&B. URL= http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/ppapers/p1650-a/pages/conifers.html, accessed 22-Jan-2000.
See also:
Burns & Honkala 1990
.
Elias 1987
.
FEIS database
.
Little 1980
.
MacKinnon et al. 1992
.
Owens and Simpson 1986
.
Parker and Dickinson 1990
.
Powell 1987
.
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This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.geocities.com/~earlecj/pi/la/laricina.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
E-mail:
earlecj@earthlink.com
Last modified on 24-Jan-2000