Larch

Larches are the deciduous conifers of the genus Larix, in the pine family: unlike most conifers they drop their needles each autumn, after the needles have turned golden yellow. The tallest species reach fifty to sixty metres. The needles grow singly along long shoots and in dense tufts of twenty to fifty on short ones, and the small seed cones usually stand upright. The genus ranges across the cool and cold zones of the Northern Hemisphere, from North America through Europe to Siberia, China and Japan, and dominates much of the boreal forest of Siberia and Canada. Its tough, durable timber is used for boats, cladding, decking and fencing, and the tree also gives arabinogalactan, Venice turpentine, rosin for violin bows and an essential oil. In fourteenth-century Germany a few larch planks were built into a house to guard it from fire, and twigs hung on the house kept off lightning; Slavic children wore larch amulets against the evil eye, and in the Austrian Tyrol offerings to deities were laid beneath the trees. In magical practice larch is carried or worn against enchantment and the evil eye, and put into sachets meant to prevent fires.