That fall, I called the ranger station in Bonner's Ferry to obtain a permit to collect the seeds. The ranger actually laughed when I told him that I wanted to collect a few hundred seeds. "Just take them," he said.
I took a Friday off work and spent a long weekend traveling to North Idaho and back. I'd never been up there that late in the year, so I wasn't sure what to expect.
Here's what greeted me on the trail on the way in:
The track is from black bear and the leaf had fallen from the huckleberry bushes that cover the landscape. There was only a half-inch of snow, so driving up there wasn't really a problem. Though the bears were obviously not hibernating yet, I didn't see any large game animals on my hike.
The tree that I'd previously located was a couple of miles in- perched on the edge of a 1000 foot cliff. I collected dozens of cones that were at the perfect stage. They were ripe, but had not yet released their seeds.
Once I was back home, I tried germinating some of them, but I was met with failure. Larix lyallii isn't an easy species to propagate from seed. I must have just been lucky that first time. I donated seed to the seed exchange of a local botanical garden, in the hopes of giving growers in other countries access to this uncommon species. I have to wonder if they had any better luck than I did.
Larch trees tend to have only a couple of decent cone crops per decade- if that. I am not sure when I'll next be up there at the right time on a good year. I kick myself for killing that tiny seedling that I had so painstakingly raised for four years.
