Description
The resinous heartwood is pale red-brown to brick red in colour, with clearly marked annual rings. The wood is straight grained, contains knots, and has a fine uniform texture. Weight about 590 kg/m³ (37 lb/ft³); specific gravity .59.
Siberian Larch
Durability:
The wood is moderately durable and subject to insect attack. The heartwood is resistant and the sapwood moderately resistant to preservative treatment.
Mechanical Properties:
Air dried timber is about 50% harder than Baltic redwood, and slightly stronger in bending strength and toughness, and similar properties in crushing and impact strengths.
Seasoning:
Larch dries fairly rapidly with a tendency to distort and for knots to split and loosen. It may be kiln dried very satisfactorily. There is small movement in service.
Uses:
- Pit props, posts, transmission poles, piles, boat planking, exterior work in contact with the ground
- Door and window frames, flooring, staircases, ship building
- As larch is harder an tougher than most conifers, it is used in preference where durability and strength are prime requirements
- Sliced as decorative veneers
Additional information
| Latin Name | Larix decidua |
|---|---|
| Family Name | Pinaceae |
| Distribution | Europe, particularly the mountain areas of the Alps, UK, W. Russia |
| Also know as | Mill syn. L. europaea, D.C |
Timber you may like
-
Western Red Cedar
Western Red Cedar is straight grained, rather coarse textured, with a prominent growth ring figure and non-resinous. The timber's heartwood shows considerable colour variation when fresh, from a dark chocolate-brown to a salmon pink colour, perhaps variegated, maturing down to a reddish-brown and, in time, to silver-grey – this weathered appearance sometimes sought-after by architects. Weight is 370 kg/m³ (23 lb/ft³); specific gravity .37.
-
Douglas Fir
Douglas Fir's heartwood is a light reddish-brown shade, and the contrast between earlywood and latewood provides a prominent growth ring figure which shows as an abrupt colour contrast on plain sawn timber and rotary cut veneers. The timber is straight grained but sometimes with wavy or spiral grain and with a uniform medium texture. Weight 530 kg/m³ (33 lb/ft³); specific gravity .53.
-
Southern Yellow Pine
The sapwood is narrow in the better grades, sometimes up to 50mm wide, lighter in colour than the heartwood which is yellowish-brown to reddish-brown. Both species are typical of the hard-pine class, being resinous, with the growth-rings usually well-marked by the contrast between the light-coloured early-wood, and the dense, darker-coloured late-wood, which produces a rather coarse texture in the wood, especially in fairly rapidly grown material with its wide growth-rings. The timbers weigh about 670 kg/m³ on average when dried. The lower density material of P. palustris and P. elliottii together with other species termed southern yellow pine, is lighter in weight, coarser in texture, inferior in strength, and usually has a wider sapwood, sometimes as wide as 150mm.
-
Alaskan Yellow Cedar
Heartwood is a light yellow. Sapwood is a similar whitish/pale yellow maturing down to a reddish-brown and, in time, to silver-grey. Weight 495kg/m3