AKA - Hackmatack, Eastern larch or American larch - Larix laricina – the Tamarack is one of my most favorite trees.
The tamarack is one of only three native North American larch species and is the most common. Unlike other conifers the larch sheds its needles in the fall like
bald cypress. It turns a radiant golden yellow just prior to shedding its
needles and with the arrival of spring grows a complete new set.
It's spring time here and the rosy-hued structures shown in the photo are new female cones that appear in the spring and will eventually mature into woody, brown cones.
Tamarack is the
most cold-hardy of any native tree and has the strongest wood of all the
conifers. Tamarack also has the widest range of all the North American
conifers.
While this species will grow exceedingly well in upland locations the tamarack prefers full sun and thrives in bogs, swamps and wet acidic soil. It is often found in association with black spruce, balsam fir and northern white cedar.
Because it grows slowly in cold, wet environments the wood is surprisingly dense, heavy, hard and very durable in contact with soil. This natural rot resistance without chemical treatment makes it prized for fence posts, railroad ties, poles and boat building.
Native Americans used the flexible and stringy roots, called watap, to sew-together sheets of birch bark for the assembly of canoes.
There wasn't a tamarack to be found anywhere in the neighborhood when this property was acquired; although government land office surveyor notes identified it as a common tree on the peninsula before European settlement. Large trees are very rare rare as most old specimens were killed years ago by the larch sawfly. And most certainly most found their way into fence posts and shingles as old growth forest was cleared for agriculture.
Tamarack grows so well here and being less suitable as deer browse has resulted in it becoming one of the top naturally regenerated species on our landscape.
Consider the larch....
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