The timid larch trees seemingly hide from tourists among our big spruces and balsam firs all summer. When you look their way from a distance, it looks like you’re seeing all evergreens. Then, at this time of year, the larches seemingly get up the nerve to spring their joke with a dramatic visual “Surprise!”
Their needles quickly become an incandescent greenish yellow, and the trees suddenly stand out brightly among their stolid dark green neighbors. Soon, they’ll drop all of their needles and become bare wood, disappearing from easy view again after they’ve admitted that they’re not evergreens. (They are, however, conifers [cone-seeders] like spruce and fir.)
These magical trees also are known by their Native American names as tamaracks (Algonquin Tribe) or hackmatacks (Abanaki Tribe), both names reportedly meaning in English “wood used for snowshoes.” The wood is hard, durable, and rot-resistant. It also was used by Native Americans for canoe parts and sleds.
Today, larch wood has many uses, especially in boat building and structure-cladding projects. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 5, 2023.)