Tabitha Hayes, age 13, of Chattanooga, Tenn., for her question:
ARE ALL PINE TREES EVERGREENS?
Most of the trees in the pine family are evergreens. The larch, however, is a pine tree that doesn't fit into this class. Unlike most of the trees that have needlelike leaves, larches shed their needles every fall and go through the winter without any greenery.
Like the apple and sycamore, the larch is a deciduous tree.
Larches grow throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It is easy to recognize larches by their needles, which grow in unusual clusters on spurlike branches.
Cones grow from some of the buds. Ripe cones are about one inch long. At first, they are bright red. When they become ripe, they turn chestnut brown. The cones remain on the trees after the needles have fallen off.
Larches are often planted as ornamental trees because of their attractive shapes and their open, yellow green crowns.
Three species are native to Canada and the United States: the eastern larch, the western larch and the European larch. Also growing here in limited numbers is the subalpine larch.
The eastern larch is often called the tamarack or hackmatack. It is a medium sized tree, reaching heights up to 60 feet. Its branches form a narrow pyramid. It grows from Canada through the eastern United States, as far south as Pennsylvania and west to Illinois.
The western larch is a large tree. It grows to be 150 feet tall. It grows extensively in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia. The western larch is commercially important for its lumber.
The European larch is another important timber species. It has been widely planted in the eastern part of the U.S.
The subalpine larch is a rare, small timberline tree. It thrives in the western U.S. and Canada.
The eastern larch is not important commercially, but its wood is sometimes used as poles. The American Indians used its tough roots to bind their canoes.
The western larch's wood closely resembles that of the Douglas fir. The western larch has an orange red, scaly bark and open crowns of light green foliage.
There are 80 different kinds of pine trees scattered throughout the Northern Hemisphere with 35 native to the U.S. The largest of all is the stately sugar pine which reaches a height of about 250 feet and has a trunk that is up to 10 feet in diameter. This tree is native to the mountains of California and Oregon.
Where the pine cone on the larch is only one inch long, the pine cones on the sugar pine will range from 10 to 25 inches in length.