Autumn colour
The slope this larch grows on was fenced, guarded and shut to the public for roughly half a century.
European Larch
Larix decidua
A larch drops its needles every winter, which is unusual for a conifer and part of why the ones that get noticed tend to stand out. We map 4 of them, in 4 cities.
Lithuania's State Protected Areas Service records one in the forest near Degsne at 49 metres, the tallest tree of any kind in the country, grown from a stand planted in 1849. Krakow's grows on a slope that was fenced off as woodland between 1902 and 1909 and kept shut to walkers for roughly half a century before the park finally let people in. Reykjavik's stands in Holavallagardur, the city's oldest cemetery, where conifers generally struggle against Iceland's wind and thin soil badly enough that the national forestry society singled this one out in 2011 for having managed it anyway.
Krakow
Reykjavik
Autumn colour
European larch does not grow wild anywhere near Iceland, and conifers in general struggle against the country's wind and thin soil more than almost any other kind of tree, which is part of why Icel...
Degsne
Autumn colour
The tallest tree in Lithuania is a larch, and it is under two metres round.
Oberndorf bei Salzburg
Autumn colour
A farmer from the Tettenbach farm came home alive from the First World War, and in 1918 he planted a larch to say thank you.
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