April 2008The Latin name for Tamarack is Larix laricina. Other common names are Eastern Larch, American Larch, Red Larch, Black Larch, takmahak and Hackmatack, which is an Abenaki word for ‘wood used for snowshoes’ (Erichsen-Brown 1979).
May 2008The tender spring shoots are nutritious, and can be eaten when they are boiled. The inner bark (cambium layer) of the tamarack tree can also be scraped, dried and ground into a meal to be mixed with other flours… which some references indicate is an ‘acquired’ taste (Peterson 1977), while other references imply the gummy sap that seeps from the tree has a very good flavor when chewed (Hutchens 1973), as sweet as maple sugar.
June 2008A tea made from tamarack bark is used as a laxative, tonic, a diuretic for jaundice, rheumatism, and skin ailments. It is gargled for sore throats. Poultices from the inner bark are used on sores, swellings and burns, as well as for headaches. For headaches, Ojibwe crush the leaves and bark and either applied as a poultice, or placed on hot stones and the fumes inhaled (Erichsen-Brown 1979). A tea from the needles is used as an astringent, and for piles diarrhea, dysentery, and dropsy. The gum from the tamarack sap is chewed for indigestion. The sawdust from tamarack may cause dermatitis (Foster & Duke 1977).
June 2008The wood is very sturdy and today is used for house frames, railroad ties and fence posts.
October 31, 2007The flaky dark reddish-gray bark of the tamarack tree resembles Black Spruce. The pale green needles are soft and short (about an inch long) and grow in brush-like tufts on small knobby spurs along each twig. The cones of the tamarack are also fairly small - round, and less than an inch long (Peterson 1977). Very often you will see the tall tamarack trees growing in pure stands. Just before the needles drop in autumn, the needles turn a beautiful golden color, affording the stands of tamarack a striking contrast to the fall foliage.
October 31, 2007Though the tamarack tree resembles other evergreens, it is actually a deciduous conifer, meaning that it sheds it’s needles every fall.
April 2008Tamarack trees are well adapted to the cold. The tree's natural range is from Labrador to West Virginia, northern Illinois and New Jersey, across southern Canada to Northern British Columbia Alaska. It grows near sea level in northern regions, and at higher elevations in the southern extreme of it’s range.
There is another excellent article about tamaracks from the New York Times, After the Maples, the Golden Tamarack where you will read: But it's in the Northeast Kingdom [where I live in Vermont], that wild, lonely upland northeast of Montpelier, where the tamarack really comes into its own. This stands to reason - the closer to the arctic treeline you go, the more the tamarack likes it. Every year about the time that maple tree down on our common sheds its last leaf, I take my family on an overnight drive along the back roads of the region, enjoying not only the golden tamaracks and the spare, craggy beauty of the landscape, but the luxury of having it virtually all to ourselves.
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Lovely close-ups & very informative. I also liked the T-sign on the last one.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post, Andree. Great information, lovely pictures, all in sequence. I like it. We have Larch out here in the Cascades and I suppose elsewhere. They are beautiful in the fall changing color amongst the green conifers. MB
ReplyDeleteInteresting information and beautiful pictures! Also a neat TRADITION THAT you have taking your family to see this beauty each fall.
ReplyDeleteNow I will have to look to see if we have these in my part of CT. Thanks to you, I'll have no problem recognizing it.
ReplyDeleteI'd not heard about these trees before so your post is highly informative.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the pictures and the info here, it is posts such as this that got me interested in blogging in the first place.. :O)
ReplyDeleteTamarack trees were common in Eastern Washington State where I grew up, but not many in the Seattle area. They are gorgeous in the fall.
ReplyDeleteSome wonderful pictures and information there!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos and informative text. It makes me happy to be posting with Mrs. Nesbitt.
ReplyDelete