Larch

Tiers like a pine’s, more open and a lighter green.

About 11 m tall out in the open. In the old forests it towers far higher: most stand two to four times that, the tallest up to nine times, and now and then an old giant stands among the rest.

Where it grows

Land	How many of the trees
Taiga	One in four

Trees of a kind keep together in stands about 60 m across.

Through the year

A conifer that drops its needles: green in spring and summer, butter-yellow to gold in autumn, then bare twigs through the winter.

In play

Its trunk stops men and horses, who go round it. Wildfire leaves it black and bare, and burnt or felled ground grows back over about four years.