Now is the time to locate Tamarack Trees, and we did a little of that yesterday, as you see.
In the summer, when gazing at the distant woods, it can be hard to tell the thin and wiry Tamaracks from their sturdier neighbors, the Spruces and Balsam Firs. All are a mass of green-needled branches. But at this time of year, the Tamaracks confess their secret: their needled branches flare into yellow incandescence and then the needles let go and drop like golden sprinkles.
These trees are different. They’re “deciduous,” not evergreen, but they’re also “coniferous” because they produce and drop cones (both male and female ones from the same tree).
“Tamarack” is the Algonquin Tribe’s name for “snowshoe wood,” which is what the tree’s flexible wood trunk and branches could become in the hands of a good craftsman. Nonetheless, the tree also is commonly called a “Hackmatack” (Abanaki Tribe name) and a “Larch” (European name). (Brooklin, Maine) See also the image in the first Comment space.