Pseudolarix amabilis Seeds | Golden Larch
LATIN NAME: Pseudolarix amabilis
COMMON NAME: Golden Larch
Plant Profile
The tree is deciduous, so the whole crown empties for winter. Needles sit two ways: singly along the extending long shoots, and in dense radiating whorls of fifteen to thirty on stubby spur shoots that stay on the branch for years. Each needle is flat, soft and light green, four to seven centimetres long, and it fades to a buttery gold as autumn nights cool. That colour comes on hard and all at once, and then the needles and the spurs fall together. A true larch holds its cones for years after they ripen; golden larch alone empties its cones from the top down.
Golden larch never forms extensive pure forest. It turns up in small groups on well-drained, acidic hill soils, mixed with broadleaved trees, and it is treated as a species of conservation concern across its native districts because the wild stands are few and fragmented. The trunk is straight and grey, scaly when young and deeply fissured on old specimens.
Young trees grow with deliberate patience, then gather pace once the leader is established. Planted specimens in Chinese temple grounds are known to have stood for a century and more, and mature trees carry a broad, open crown on a stout trunk, with the lowest branches sweeping down rather than lifting.
Because the spurs keep needles in tight rosettes and the branches respond well to wiring when young, golden larch is a long-established subject for dwarfed pot training in China and Japan. Old potted specimens show the same abrupt autumn colour as the field trees, and the dwarfed form keeps the fissured bark and the whorled spurs that make the species recognisable. Timber from felled trees is light and straight-grained and has been used for local building work and joinery, though the tree is far more valuable standing.
Science & Biotechnology
The root bark of golden larch yields the pseudolaric acids, a pair of diterpenoid acids first isolated in the middle of the twentieth century and now widely studied. Pseudolaric acid A and its relative pseudolaric acid B show activity against dermatophyte and Candida species, and pseudolaric acid B is described in the pharmacology literature as a microtubule-binding agent that disrupts the spindle, which is why it keeps appearing in work on cell division and in anticancer screening. The bark was already the part of the tree that old pharmacy stocks depended on, which makes the wild stands especially vulnerable to stripping.
Uses & Benefits
Cuttings from golden larch root poorly, so nurseries lean on seed for planting stock. Where uniform plants are wanted, laboratories raise them through immature embryo culture and axillary shoot multiplication, then root the shoots in sterile conditions and harden the plantlets in a shaded frame before they go out. That kind of work matters commercially because the tree is grown as an ornamental in Europe and North America far from any wild population.
Growing from Seed
Golden larch wants what most conifers of the Chinese hills want: deep, moist, well-drained loam that is neutral to slightly acidic, and a position out of the worst drying wind. Shelter matters more than sun, because the tree leafs out early and a hard late frost will blacken the new growth for the season. Give it the space of a specimen on a lawn or a bank, and it will reward that space with a straight trunk and that brief charge of gold in autumn.
Because the cone disintegrates, collect the axis with the scales still attached and shake the winged seed out into a paper bag as it comes free. Sow in autumn in a frame, or store the seed cool and moist and sow in spring: the seed needs a spell of cold and damp before it will stir. Cover it only five to eight millimetres deep with a mix of sieved loam, leaf mould and coarse grit, then top with a thin layer of grit to hold moisture and keep moss down.
Keep the seed pan in light shade and never let the surface dry hard. Prick the young plants out when the first real needles have hardened and the stems have stiffened, then grow them on in deep pots where the taproot can descend. Plant out into the final site while the trees are still small, mulch with leaf mould, water through the first dry summers, and keep lime away from the roots. Aphids on new growth and needle blights in humid shade are the usual complaints, and neither is serious in a site with moving air.
Our Take
Golden larch is the conifer to plant when you want autumn colour rather than winter green, and it is at its best in the sort of cool, damp garden that suits rhododendrons. If you are building a collection of deciduous conifers, pair it with the European larch, which keeps its cones for years and shows you the difference immediately, and set Chinese fir nearby for a contrast in leaf, since that one stays evergreen. The dawn redwood will also take the same ground, though it wants more constant moisture at the root.
Related Reading
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