Tamarack

(Larix laricina)

Color Photograph: Illinois State Museum

Tamarack (Larix laricina)

Identifying Characters: The bush like clumps of needles on woody sprus (characteristic of the genus Larix) and the range of this species will identify Tamarack.

Similar Species: This is the only species of Larix in its boreal and northeastern U.S. range.

Measurements: Mature individuals are typically between 50 and 75 feet tall, although occasional specimens reach over 100 feet; diameter at breast height 1 to 1.75 feet.

Cones: Cones 0.5 to 0.8 in length, ovoid; cone brachts shorter than cone scales and not projecting beyond the outer lip of the cone scales.

Needles: Needles flattened and slightly triangular in cross-section; color blue-green 0.8 to 1.3 inches in length

Bark: Bark gray to red-brown, thin, scaly.

Native Range: Tamarack has one of the widest ranges of all North American conifers. Its main range extends from Newfoundland and Labrador west along the northern limit of trees, and across the Continental Divide in northern Yukon Territory; then south in the Mackenzie River drainage to northeastern British Columbia and central Alberta; and east to southern Manitoba, southern Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, extreme northeastern Illinois, northern Indiana, northern Ohio, northern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, northern Connecticut, and Maine. It also grows locally in the mountains of northern West Virginia and adjacent western Maryland. A major disjunct area of tamarack is found in interior Alaska, in the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins between the Brooks Range on the north and the Alaska Range on the south; three minor areas are near the Alaska-Yukon border. (Silvics of North America. 1990. Agriculture Handbook 654.)

Habitat: This species is characteristic of damp or boggy habitats in bogs, swamps, and along streams and lakes. However the species does sometimes occur in drier, but loamy soils.