Larix lyallii Parl.

Larches 2
and its general cultivation is certainly worth attempt-
ing in Northern and Central Europe, on account of
its beauty, and for the wonderful qualities of its
wood. It may be expected to grow wherever the
Pseudo-Tsuga and the Pinus ponderosa flourish, and
should be planted in thoroughly drained soil, in as
dry a situation as possible.
Larix Lyallii. — The second of the Western
American Larches, Larix Lyallii,* is a rare and
* Identifications.—Larix Lyallii, Parlatore, Enurn. Sem.
Hort. Reg. Mus, Flor.. 1863; Gard. Chron., 1863, p. 916;
Lyall.in Jour. Linn. Soc.,yii., p. 143 ; Sargent, Rep. to, Census
U. S.j vol. ix., p. 216; Woods of the U. S., p. 133, Pinus
Lyallii, Parlatore, in De Candolle, Prodr., xvia., 412.
local tree, still very imperfectly known. Dr. Lyall,
the botanist of the British Boundary Survey be*
tween 1858 and i86r, detected this species grow-
ing near the timber line at an elevation of
nearly 7000 feet in the Cascade Mountains, and on
the Galton Range, which is not laid down upon
any map I have seen, but which Mr. G. M. Dawson,
of the Canadian Geological Survey, tells me lies just
east of the Rootamie River in longitude 115° on the
49th parallel, “a massive range parallel to the Rocky
Mountains, with snowy peaks south of the boundary
line,” and in the Rocky Mountains. It was a long
time before this tree was seen again. Mr. Watson
failed to rediscover it in his journey of 1880 and three
years later.
Mr. Canby and I hunted for it in vain upon the
high mountains and passes of the Rocky Moutains to
the north-east of Flathead Lake, close up to the
British boundary, where Dr. Lyall’s vague indications
led me to suppose it was to be looked for. During the
same summer, however, Mr. T. S. Brandegee being
engaged in studying the forests on the eastern slopes-
of the Cascade Mountains in connection with the
Northern Transcontinental Survey, was fortunate
enough to rediscover Larix Lyallii at the timber line
upon Mount Stewart, an immense spur of the Cascade
Range pushed out to the eastward into the plains of
the Columbia. Later in the same summer Mr. H.
B. Ayers, of the Transcontinental Survey, collected
a small branch of Larch without leaves or fruit
in Grave Creek Pass of Northern Montana, which I
doubtfully refer to this species. Professor Macoun,
too, has, I believe, found Larix Lyallii north of the
boundary in British Columbia; but I have not yet
had an opportunity of examining his specimen. Mr.
Brandegee visited the Mount Stewart locality again
in the autumn of 1885, for the purpose of securing a
trunk of this tree for the Jesup Collection of American
woods in the American Museum of Natural History.
In this undertaking, I am glad to be able to report,
he has been entirely successful in spite of the late-
ness of the season and the almost insurmountable
difficulties of getting a heavy log out of these steep
and very broken mountains into which no trail yet
penetrates, and that his fine specimen is now safely in
New York.
Larix Lyallii seems certainly very distinct from L.
occidentalis, although it is not impossible that a fuller
knowledge of these two species will bring forms to
light which will serve to unite them. As now known
L. Lyallii will be readily distinguished by its shorter
quadrangular leaves, stouter secondary branch or
spurs, by the dense white tomentum which covers the
young shoots and leaf-buds, and by the larger
sessile cone, either green or bright red while young.
These when fully grown, are from i£ to 1$ inch long,
by 15 to 1} inch wide. The broader scales are
ciliated on the margins, while those of L. occidentalis
are quite naked. The bracts even in old dried cones
are dark reddish-purple in colour and much longer
in proportion to the length of the scales than in L.
occidentalis, truncate or acuminate and ending in a
longer and stouter mucro. The cones of L. occident-
alis often remain upon the branches until the second
or even the third year, while those of L. Lyallii fall
early in September of the first year. The two
species, moreover, are not known to grow together,
and are separated by an altitude of from 2000 to 5000-
feet.
L. Lyallii, as seen by Mr. Brandegee upon Mount
Stewart, is a low stunted tree, clinging close to the
timber line and associated with Pinus albicaulis and
Tsuga Pattoniana. It is rarely 50 feet in height, but
with a stout trunk often 4 feet in diameter, with short
small branches contorted with the wind. It never
forms anything like a forest, the isolated individuals
being widely scattered, and it is most frequently found
upon northern exposures, which seem best suited to-
its development.
The wood, which has not yet been critically
examined, is very fine-grained and compact, dark
reddish-brown in colour, the thin sap-wood nearly
white. The thin bark is brown and scaly. The
growth of this tree is astonishingly slow. Mr.
Brandegee’s log in New York is i8J inches in diameter