Size

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service site says western larch may live to be 700 years old. At such an age, the tree may be as tall as 200 feet and have a trunk as wide as 8 feet. The younger western larches, in the range of 120 years old, will be about 90 feet tall. It takes from 250 years to 400 years for a western larch to achieve 100 to 180 feet in height.
  
  

Foliage

• Every winter the stiff, sharp needles fall off the branches of a western larch, growing back anew in the springtime. The needles are a light shade of green in spring before turning darker in summer. In the fall, before falling off, the foliage changes to yellow. This makes the western larch a major attraction throughout its range as the color contrasts greatly against those of other conifers. The needles are from 1 inch long to as long as an 1 3/4 inches. The needles grow by themselves or in thick clusters on the branches. The needles grow in by May or June and fall off after the first few frosts, usually no later than November.
  
  

Cones and Bark

• The cones of the western larch are as long as 1 1/2 inches and have a rounded oblong shape. The cones develop upright on the limbs on a very short stem. The cones look spiny due to the presence of what botanists call bracts, which develop past the ends of the scales covering the cones. The cones are a dark shade of brown-gray. The bark on the older western larch will be thick, as deep as 6 inches on some, which makes the tree resistant to the effects of fire. The bark is red-brown and has obvious and deep furrows crisscrossing it.
  
  

Geography

• The western larch grows in four states in the United States as well as southeastern sections of British Columbia in Canada. The tree exists in northwest Montana, northeast Washington State, northern Oregon, and western and northern Idaho. Western larch grows in valleys and on mountain slopes, such as the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, says the Nearctica website.
  
  

Considerations

• Western larch requires full sunlight and it will not flourish in the shade. Western larch often becomes the major species to grow in an area ravaged by fire, as its bark allows it to persist through the flames where other trees do not. Logging has significantly reduced the overall number of western larches and has taken nearly all of the larger trees of this species, according to the Idaho Forest Products Commission website. The trunk of a western larch often lacks branches for the first 100 feet, with the branched part of the tree sometimes accounting for only 1/3 of the tree's length.