Here and there, the Tamarack Trees have decided to reveal their hiding places, as you see from this image taken yesterday:
November 1, 2022
They’re late coming out here this year; in prior years, many more were in full incandescence by this time:
November 1, 2018
Perhaps our dry summer delayed the process.
Tamaracks are green-needled in the spring and summer, and often are impossible to distinguish at a distance when they arise among Spruce and Balsam Fir Trees. As are those other trees, Tamaracks are coniferous; that is, they produce and drop cones for propagation.
However, Tamaracks are thinner and wirier than their cousins and – most important – they’re not evergreen. They’re deciduous and, in the fall, their true nature is disclosed when they quickly turn yellow and drop their needles like golden rain.
“Tamarack” reportedly is the Algonquin Tribe’s name for one of the tree’s uses by Native Americans: “snowshoe wood.” Nonetheless, the tree also is commonly called a “Hackmatack” (the Abanaki Tribe’s name) or a “Larch” (from Latin and German names for European pine-like trees). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine.)