User blog:Epiphlyte/Tamarack (Larix laricina)

TAMARACK (Larix laricina)

A small, slender tree which rarely grows more than 15 metres tall. It has delicate, deciduous foliage.

LEAVES

Needles are three-sided and blue-green, turning bright yellow in autumn. They grow in clusters of 15 to 25 on short woody projections which remain on the twig after the needles fall.

CONES

The small, round seed cones are red at flowering and turn brown with age. Pollen cones are yellow.

BARK

Red-brown, thin, and scaly.

TAMARACK ON THE MAP OF B.C

It is a northern species which grows mainly east of the Rockies and in a few isolated groups of trees in the Nechako Valley.

HABITAT

Tamarack is usually found with black spruce on poorly drained soils - bogs and swamps - and on cool, moist, northfacing slopes.

USES

Some native groups chewed tamarack resin to relieve indigestion. In the days of wooden sailing ships, tamarack roots were used to join the ribs to the deck timbers. Tamarack produces a heavy, durable wood used mainly for pulp but also for posts, poles, and fuel.

NOTES


 * Laricina is Latin for larch-like.
 * Tamarack comes from an Algonquin word, akemantak, meaning "wood used for snowshoes. "