The Larch is a lofty tree, with a very straight tapering trunk ordinarily attaining a length between 80 and 100 feet, but under very favourable conditions 120 feet, with a girth of bole from 6 to 12 feet. The brown bark is easily separable into thin layers, and the growth of the tree causes it to split into deep longitudinal fissures. The long lower branches are spreading, with a downward tendency, and the tips turned upward again. The twigs are mostly pendulous, and bear long and slender light-green leaves, in bundles of thirty or forty. All the other families of Coniferous trees are evergreen, their leaves lasting for several years; but at the beginning of winter the Larch leaves wither and fall, and the Larch-wood takes on a more lifeless aspect than is assumed by any of our native trees in their leafless condition. But in spring, when the fresh green leaves are just showing in spreading tufts, and the reddish-purple female flowers--Tennyson's "rosy plumelets"--hang brightly from the gaunt branches, the Larch wears an entirely different appearance, and in summer the light grace of branches and foliage makes the Larch a beautiful object. That is, one should say, the trees that grow on the very outer edge of the wood, or, better still, one that has been planted as a specimen tree, where it has room to fling out its arms on all sides without touching anything, and can get the abundant light it needs. The straight rows in the plantation, with every tree at an equal distance from its neighbours, and its lower branches dead, may be very pretty from the timber-merchant's point of view, but one likes to think of the tree as a living thing of beauty rather than as a detail in a factory where scaffold-poles and telegraph-posts are being grown to regulation size and shape. The brown cones are egg-shaped, little more than an inch in length, the scales with loose edges. The wood is very durable, and it has the great recommendation of being fit for ordinary use when the tree is only forty years old. It is most valuable for those purposes where exposure to all weathers is a necessity, for it endures constant change from wet to dry. Larch-bark is used for tanning, and Venice turpentine is a product of the tree. Unlike most Conifers, it has the power of sending out new shoots when the branches have been removed close up to the stem.