Chinese Larch

The timber is used for construction, pit props, railway sleepers, and making furniture, and the bark yields tannins. The species is also used for afforestation.

Trees to 50 m tall; trunk to 1 m d.b.h.; bark gray or gray-brown, rough, longitudinally fissured; crown conical; long branchlets reddish brown or purplish brown, rarely initially yellowish brown, finally dark gray; short branchlets 3-8 mm in diam., glabrous or densely yellowish brown hairy at apex; winter buds brown or dark brown, glossy, ovoid. Leaves 1.2-3.5 cm × 1-1.5 mm, keeled on both sides. Seed cones reddish or purplish, maturing purplish brown or light gray-brown, cylindric or ovoid-cylindric, 2.5-7.5 × 1.5-3.5 cm. Seed scales 35-90, slightly convex, 0.8-1.6 × 0.8-1.1 cm, as wide as or wider than long, ± strigose to pubescent and tuberculate abaxially, apex truncate or obtuse-rounded. Bracts often exserted, purplish brown, oblong-lanceolate, straight, apex acute or acuminate. Seeds light brown with irregular purplish spots, obliquely obovate, obliquely obovoid, 7-10 mm including wing. Pollination Apr-May, seed maturity Oct.

S Gansu, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, SE Xizang, N Yunnan

* Mountains, river basins; 2500-4300(-4600) m.

Larix potaninii is a species of larch conifer in the family Pinaceae. It is found in China and Nepal. The one of southernmost species of the genus Larix, the range of Larix potaninii extends southward almost to 27° N.