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West Virginia Trees

Chapter 36: TAMARACK
By A. B. Brooks
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

TAMARACK

Larix laricina, (DuRoi) Koch.

Form.—A tree usually 30-60 feet high, 1-2 feet in diameter; trunk straight, tapering, and having numerous slender, upward-curving branches; crown narrowly pyramidal.

Leaves.—Scattered singly or clustered in dense fascicles on short lateral spurs; linear, triangular in cross-section, ¾-1¼ inches long, light green, falling each year in autumn.

Flowers.—May, with the leaves; monoecious; staminate sessile, sub-globose, yellow; pistillate oblong with light-colored bracts and nearly orbicular rose-colored scales.

Fruit.—Cones mature autumn of first season; ovoid, obtuse, ½-¾ inch long with few light brown rounded scales.

Bark.—Thin, roughened with small rounded red-brown scales.

Wood.—Heavy, hard, slightly resinous, very strong, durable in soil, light brown.

Range.—Newfoundland south to Maryland and West Virginia, west to Minnesota and the Rocky Mountains, through British Columbia to Alaska.

Distribution in West Virginia.—A few trees near Cranesville, Preston County, growing in a swamp.

Habitat.—Prefers swamps and lake borders, but thrives in many other places.

Notes.—Tamarack is our only native cone-bearer with deciduous leaves. This tree has been transplanted in several places in the State where it makes a good appearance on the lawn.