Dahurian larch
| Dahurian larch Larix gmelinii |
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| Dahurian larch forest, Kolyma region, Arctic northeast Siberia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Pinophyta |
| Class: | Pinopsida |
| Order: | Pinales |
| Family: | Pinaceae |
| Genus: | Larix |
| Species: | L. gmelinii |
| Binomial name | |
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Larix gmelinii (Rupr.) Rupr. |
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Larix gmelinii, known as Dahurian larch, is a species of larch native to eastern Siberia and adjacent northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China (Heilongjiang) and North Korea.
Larix gmelinii is a medium-sized deciduous coniferous tree reaching 10–30 m tall, rarely 40 m, with a trunk up to 1 m diameter. The crown is broad conic; both the main branches and the side branches are level, the side branches only rarely drooping. The shoots are dimorphic, with growth divided into long shoots (typically 5–30 cm long) and bearing several buds, and short shoots only 1–2 mm long with only a single bud. The leaves are needle-like, light green, 2–3 cm long; they turn bright yellow to orange before they fall in the autumn, leaving the variably downy reddish-brown shoots bare until the next spring.
The cones are erect, ovoid, 1–2 cm (rarely 2.5 cm) long, with 15-25 moderately reflexed seed scales; they are green (rarely purple) when immature, turning brown and opening to release the seeds when mature, 3–5 months after pollination. The old cones commonly remain on the tree for many years, turning dull grey-black.
There are three varieties:
The closely related Prince Rupprecht's larch (Larix principis-rupprechtii) is treated as a fourth variety (L. gmelinii var. principis-rupprechtii) by many botanists; it occurs in a disjunct region in the Wutai Shan mountains west of Beijing, separated from typical L. gmelinii by about 1000 km, and differs in having larger (2–4 cm) cones with more scales.
Dahurian larch intergrades with the closely related Siberian larch L. sibirica of central and western Siberia where their ranges meet along the Yenisei Valley; the resulting hybrid is named Larix × czekanowskii.
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Wikipedia