Description
Larix – Larch –
There are about 14 species of fast growing, deciduous, monoecious, coniferous trees in this genus. They occur in coniferous forest of cool mountain regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They have attractive young foliage and normally brilliant, yellow to red autumn color. The needle-sdhped leaves are borne in loose spirals on the long shoots, and near whorls on the short shoots. Terminal, erect cylindrical or ovoid to conical, usually purple female cones are borne in spring, and turn woody and brown in the first season, usually persisting on the tree. Male cones are drooping, and spherical to ovoid, and pink or yellow. Larches are useful as specimen trees, and are toelrant of a wide range of conditions.
Grow in any deep, well drained soil in full sun, they resent waterlogged soil.
Prone to caterpillars, saw flies, aphids, needle blight, needle cast, rust larch cankers and larch chermes.
L. occidentalis – Western Larch – This coniferous tree, with a narrowly conical crown from Western North America grows up to 180′ feet tall and 15′ feet wide making it the tallest of the Larches. It has scaly, red brown to brown bark, becoming furrowed and widely fissured with age. Pointed linear, blue green to gray green leaves, to 1 ½” long, each with 2 white bands beneath, are held on thick, orange-brown shoots, which are hairy when young. Female cones are rich purple in summer are to 1 3/4″ long, are cylindrical to ovoid, with protruding bracts.
Zones 4-8
