Larix mastersiana
Sponsor
Kindly sponsored by
Philip & Emma Mackenzie
Credits
Tom Christian (2026)
Recommended citation
Christian, T. (2026), 'Larix mastersiana' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Common Names
- Masters Larch
- 四川红杉 (chuan hong shan)
Synonyms
- Larix griffithii var. mastersiana (Rehder & E.H.Wilson) Silba
Tree 20–25 m tall, <1 m dbh. Bark on young trees grey brown, soon scaly and breaking into stiff plates, becoming paler, thicker and rugged after a few years, with grey ribs and reddish-brown furrows. Crown conical, narrow at first, broader and irregular and sometimes domed in older trees. First order branches initially slender, ascending and curving upward toward the tips, a proportion becoming large and heavy, some more or less horizontal. Second order branches long, slender, somewhat pendulous especially in old trees. Long shoots thin, flexible, pendulous, yellowish or reddish brown, later grey, glabrous or with an initial, sparse pubescence; short shoots with rings of revolute scale bases, 3–15 mm long, stout. Vegetative buds ovoid or conical, 2 × 1.5 mm, bud scales glossy. Leaves on short shoots borne in pseudowhorls of 20–40, linear, rhombic in cross section, (1.2–)2–3.5 cm long, 1 mm wide, apex obtuse or subacute, keeled on both sides, most obviously near base, stomata absent above or in a few broken lines only, in two narrow bands below. Pollen cones 10–15 mm long, yellow. Seed cones ovoid to cylindrical, sometimes curved, apex obtuse, 2.5–4.5 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide at maturity, green at first with yellowish bracts often obscuring seed scales, maturing pale brown to brown with darker bracts. Seed scales 30–40(–56?) per cone, obcordate to orbicular, convex, 6–10 × 7–12 mm at midcone, surface smooth or slightly striated, initially pubescent, upper margin entire to weakly emarginate. Bracts broad lanceolate, exserted, exposed part triangular, reflexed, margins lacerate. Seeds ovoid, 3 × 2 mm, seed wings obovate, 6–8 × 4–5 mm, pale yellowish brown. (Farjon 2017; Debreczy & Rácz 2011; Grimshaw & Bayton 2009; Fu, Li & Mill 1999).
Distribution China W Sichuan
Habitat High mountain forests, 2000–3500 m asl, usually on well drained podzol soils on steep slopes in areas characterised by a moist, cold-temperate climate. A poorly understood species, probably a pioneer after disturbance, later mixing with conifers including Abies fargesii, Picea purpurea, P. wilsonii and Tsuga chinensis.
RHS Hardiness Rating H6
Conservation status Endangered (EN)
Taxonomic note Recent phylogenomic analyses place Larix mastersiana within L. potaninii (Qiu et al. 2025). Morphologically these species are similar, but an important distinction is that the seed cone bracts of L. mastersiana are strongly reflexed when young, later reflexed to somewhat spreading when the cone matures, while in L. potaninii the bracts are distinctly erect, not reflexed, although the cusp may spread to the horizontal. Seed cone morphology is an important character in nearly all conifers and especially in Pinaceae; the sort of discordance described here would not typically be expected to occur within a species; some workers would utilise infraspecific rank to accommodate such an aberrance, but according to Qiu et al. (2025) their “L. mastersiana” samples do not represent a homogenous group within L. potaninii. Further research is clearly needed, as Qiu et al. acknowledge. For the time being we will maintain L. mastersiana as distinct. It is so rarely grown the matter is virtually inconsequential to horticulture!
Larix mastersiana may be the rarest larch of all in cultivation – only a single confirmed tree has been traced during research for this account, growing at Gresgarth Hall, Lancashire, UK. Wilson introduced this species in 1908 (W 906) and again in 1910 (W 4730) (Sargent 1916) but his collections apparently did not result in any successful trees. Not a single specimen is recorded in the entire report of the 1931 RHS Conifer Conference (Chittenden 1932), nor in Conifers in the British Isles (Mitchell 1972), and even by the late 1980s, after China had been open to western collectors again for several years, Rushforth observed it was still not cultivated (Rushforth 1987).
Perhaps the first introduction since Wilson’s came in 1989, from material collected at 3000 m asl in Sichuan by Dr Yin Kaipu (the collection number Yin 92.2 is given in New Trees, but this may not be correct). Dr Yin accompanied many of the early SICH expeditions; during one of them he handed two packets of seed to his western colleagues: one was labelled Larix mastersiana, the other L. [gmelinii var.] principis-rupprechtii, the latter collected from the type tree of that taxon that was still growing in the monastery in the Wutai Shan (q.v.) (K. Rushforth, pers. comm. 2026). This seed (both taxa) seems to have enjoyed a rather broad distribution throuhgout Europe and North America, certainly reaching as far as Sonoma Botanical Garden, California, and resulting in reports of very rapidly growing “L. mastersiana” in North America. The Sonoma trees were not planted out until 2000 – John Grimshaw was rather surprised to see these in 2004 during research for New Trees – but within a few years their numbers were reduced to two due to honey fungus. The survivors were c. 6 m tall in 2007 ‘producing very long extension growth each year’ (Grimshaw & Bayton 2009) but the last of them died in 2016 (M. Wenzel, pers. comm. 2026). Material received from Sonoma was accessioned at the Arnold Arboretum, Boston in 1995 but did not survive (Arnold Arboretum 2026).
On examining material labelled “Larix mastersiana” in Europe, and presumably deriving from the same introduction, Keith Rushforth was able to key it out using Flora Of China to somewhere in the L. gmelinii complex ‘between principis-ruprechtii and olgensis’ (K. Rushforth, pers. comm. 2026). The very rapid initial growth rates reported from North America, and at least some material from European cultivation seeming to key out to L. gmelinii, all suggests that during or after the expedition – most likely during seed cleaning or repackaging – the identities of the two packets became confused. It seems likely that only very few of the true L. mastersiana germinated, and those Masters Larch reportedly raised from the introduction were in fact L. gmelinii var. principis-ruprechtii (K. Rushforth, pers. comm. 2026).
This begs the question, where did the sole genuine tree of Larix mastersiana growing at Gresgarth come from? We know it was obtained from Castle Howard in the early 1990s (who had probably obtained it from Kew) as ‘L. principis-rupprechtii’ and that Keith Rushforth later determined it was Larix mastersiana. This sequence of events adds further evidence to the theory that Dr Yin’s two seed packets were indeed confused at some stage prior to distribution in the west. It also suggests the Gresgarth tree is ultimately traceable to one of Dr Yin’s two envelopes. The Gresgarth tree was 12.7 m tall × 18 cm dbh in 2021 (The Tree Register 2026), growing close to other trees which have no doubt helped it to establish, but which do mean it is a little crowded (pers. obs.). Since it was positively identified it has been propagated by grafting on several occasions.
Other purported exampls of Larix mastersiana include one at Maurice Foster’s White House Farm, Kent, 4 m × 5 cm in 2019 (from a 2014 planting); and at Sandling Park, Kent, 2.5 m tall in 2018 (The Tree Register 2026). The latter was donated by Maurice Foster who obtained his own tree, and presumably the one at Sandling, from Jacky Pousse who propagated them from a tree in Arboretum Waasland, Belgium (J. Aldridge, pers. comm. 2026). The White House Farm tree was examined during research for this account and this, too, was found to be L. gmelinii var. principis-ruprechtii. All other propagules of the Waasland plant will therefore be this taxon, too.
Roy Lancaster collected Larix mastersiana in 1986 from Walong, Sichuan under L 1531 (E00074483), but this did not result in any plants (pers. comm. 2026). Philippe de Spoelberch has also seen it in the wild but has never introduced seed (pers. comm. 2026).
Most recently Larix mastersiana was collected from near Pingwu, Sichuan, by an American team in 2017 (NACPEC 17–003) but material at the Arnold Arboretum perished rather promptly (Arnold Arboretum 2026).
