This is the time of year when people admire the colours of deciduous trees. Most of those trees are broad-leaved, but my favourite is actually a conifer: the larch.
We have two local species: the Western Larch grows at low altitudes; the Alpine Larch grows at high. The larger of the two is the Western and it is the tree that mixes gold among the green where the valley walls rise out of the Lake.
This tree is my favourite too!
Me too. I like to nibble the citrusy needles just emerging in spring.
Your recent post evokes memories. The larch is indeed lovely. Is larch the tree my Gran called tamarack? Do they ‘creak’ in the wind? As a child I remember being lulled to sleep by trees swaying near her Kootenay cabin. She said it was the tamaracks talking.
Marie, when I was a child, I also knew these trees as tamaracks. It seems we were both wrong. The tamarack certainly is a type of larch (it is in the same genus, Larix). However in BC, the tamarack is only found in the northeast. The two species we have in the southeast are the Western Larch and the Alpine Larch. Do they creak in the wind? I have no direct experience. Childhood memories of drifting asleep to the sounds of wind through Western Red Cedar and Douglas-fir, yes—and of course the lulling sound of rain on the roof. But, there were no larch in my yard, only in the distance.