Larch

Larch trees are slender, delicate conifers that can grow to an impressive 40-metres tall. Their fine light-green needles are soft to the touch, and they grow small (and many) soft cones which lots of birds enjoy because it is easy for them to reach the seeds inside them.

The name larch comes from the Latin larigno which means ‘the tree from Larignum’. Larignum was a town in the Alps where the Romans – under the rule of Julius Caesar – first came in contact with the larch and discovered that it is very resistant to fire. The Danish name for larch – lærk – comes from the German name for ‘tree’, and the Danes first contact with the larch was with its introduction from Germany in the mid-1700s.

Even though it is a conifer, the larch is a bit of an outsider in Denmark, as it isn’t an evergreen like pine, spruce and fir trees. The larch tree’s needles wilt and turn yellow in the autumn and then fall off and a new batch of light-green needles grow in the spring.