User blog:Epiphlyte/Western Larch (Larix accidentalis)

WESTERN LARCH (Larix accidentalis)

Like all larches, it loses its needles in the autumn. This large, handsome coniferous tree can grow to 80 metres tall and 850 years of age.

LEAVES

New needles are soft green, turning golden yellow in the fall, and broadly triangular in cross section. They are long, clustered in bunches of 15 to 30 on stubby, woody projections which remain on the twig after the needles fall.

CONES

Seed cones are elongated and red to reddish-brown. The scales have white hairs on the lower surface and prominent, long slender bracts. Pollen cones are yellow.

BARK

Mature trees develop thick, grooved plate-like bark with cinnamon-coloured scales (similar to ponderosa pine bark).

WESTERN LARCH ON THE MAP OF B.C

It grows in valleys and on the lower slopes of mountains in the southern Interior.

HABITAT

Western larch usually grows in mixed forests but can occasionally be found in pure groups of trees after a severe wildfIre. It demands full sunlight and grows well on fIreblackened soil. Fire releases nutrients which it uses to grow faster than its companion species. Low temperatures limit the distribution of western larch. It is quite sensitive to frost damage because it continues to grow from bup-burst in spring through to September; most evergreen conifers stop growing in mid-July.

USES

Aboriginal people seldom used western larch wood; however, they mixed the dried pitch with grease and used it as a cosmetic. Dried powdered pitch was also an ingredient of a red paint applied to wood or buckskin. The wood of western larch is one of the strongest in Canada. It is often used in heavy construction and for railway ties and pilings.

NOTES


 * The thick bark of mature western larch and it's habit of shredding lower branches make this species resistent to fire