As trees go, it wasn’t that impressive. Its branches were a little crooked, one stuck out at a right angle like a broken arm, and its needles had all but fallen off in the last cold snap.
But it didn’t matter. I liked this tree. The Parent Larch, as it is known, is nearly 300 years old and one of the first — if not the first — European larch planted in Britain from a handful gifted to the Duke of Atholl in the early 18th century.
I wonder if the duke knew what he had. Those trees and their descendants — later, many of them hybrids, crossed with Japanese larch — would go on to a remarkable role in Britain’s landscape, economy and culture. As the hulls of warships, as the railroad ties laid along the miles of tracks carved through Britain in the 19th century, and as the straight, strong rods that held the roof above coal miners’ heads, known as pit props.
But then, centuries later, it would be devastated by disease. And despite being prized for its strength, the larch, much like the world it inhabits, would turn out to be much more vulnerable than we’d imagined. Its story is the story of our relationship with our environment condensed into one lovely tree.
Larch is a deciduous conifer — a misnomer you’d think, but no. It’s a needle-bearing, cone-carrying tree that changes color each autumn, dropping its needles like its broad-leaved cousins drop their leaves. Each October, hillsides in the north of England and Scotland are scattered with trees that look like cheerful, upturned, yellow and burnt orange paintbrushes.
Certain trees connect us to the past. Pivotal moments in history, moments where luck changed for better or worse, or a decision set a certain course. In the 18th century, seafaring explorers like Captain Cook gave beer brewed from the Sitka Spruce to their crews to prevent scurvy, and the tree’s light and strong timber was used for early warplanes in World War I. The resin of the Scots pine was used to make the turpentine that, mixed with pitch or tar, coated the hulls of wooden sailing ships, and its strong timber was used for masts. (Left alone, its short, blue-green leaves and reddish bark are home to red squirrels, wood ants and pine martens.)
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The post The Last of the Larch appeared first on New York Times.
