Number One

The Larch.

The... ...LARCH.

Wood from larch trees is distinguished from wood from other conifers by being on the one hand a soft wood but waterproof and durable. Siberian Larch is also a very dense wood as well as strong.

Although a soft wood, larch wood is also quite heavy. Thus, considering its rare combination of soft to work, but dense, heavy, waterproof, strong, and durable - wood from the larch is unique.

It is also very high in calorific density and therefore makes one of the best fire-woods available and one of the few soft woods genuinely useful for this purpose.

The Larch.

A mighty fine tree providing a mighty fine timber.

Siberian Larch forest in Spring

Siberian Larch forests would seem quite pleasant to walk through in the Spring, it would appear, from photographs.

I have not, myself, been through any Siberian Larch forests, either in Spring or at any other time of the year - although I have, unfortunately, been through a Russian Birch forest on the apron of Winter and that was rivaled only by many stiff and rapid walks through St James's Square in London in the middle of Winter and many a night's walk down an Austrian Alpine road from a nightclub where I was playing in a duo - along with another young fellow from Khancoban, New South Wales (which is in the Snowy Valley, as you would know).

I must say, interestingly, I always found St. James's Square by far the most bitterly cold place, as the winds pierce somehow right through even multiple layers of clothing and there are little to no windbreaks presented by any of the trees there, which are spread far apart. Indeed, why it should even be called 'St. James's' anything I'll never know, since the statue there is of William III.

It is of course, in, the district of St. James, but the park originally belonged to Henry Jermyn, the Earl of Albans, and not really King James at all.

In fact, St James's Park was never ever originally known as that at all, but rather, it was Pall Mall field.

Siberian Larch forest in Winter

St. James's Square is sparsely lined with Plane trees, which like the Maple, are completely leafless in Winter, making the bitter winds all the more unimpeded through the park.

The English Plane tree is of course though, not a Maple, but a Sycamore.

...So. No Larch trees though, at all - in St. James's Square.