European Larch

Trees to 50 m tall; trunk to 2 m d.b.h.; bark grayish brown, cracking into irregular plates; crown irregularly pyramidal; long branchlets light yellow or light grayish yellow, turning gray or blackish in 2nd or 3rd year, initially glabrous; short branchlets cylindric or subglobose, bearing rings of scale remnants; leaf cushions densely yellow pubescent. Leaves 2-3 cm × 0.5-1 mm, flat or occasionally slightly keeled adaxially, keeled abaxially. Seed cones dark red or purplish, becoming green with pink scale margins, ovoid or ovoid-oblong. Seed scales ovate or suborbicular, 0.8-1.5 × 0.7-1.3 cm, initially reddish pubescent near base abaxially, glabrescent, base narrowed, margin incurved distally, apex repand or shallowly emarginate. Bracts included, apex 3-lobed, cusp exposed, ca. 2.5 mm. Seeds dark brownish gray, ovoid-cuneate, ca. 4 × 2.5 mm; wing pale brown, ovate.

Cultivated. Jiangxi (Lu Shan), Liaoning (Xiongyuecheng) [native to Europe]

Larix europaea Lamarck & de Candolle.