The Japanese larch grows wild on the mountains of Honshu in Japan. It was first used as a woodland tree in Britain early this century. The hybrid larch is a cross between the Japanese and the European and first arose by chance when cross-pollination between female flowers of Japanese larch and males of the European one happened on the Estate of the Duke of Atholl at Dunkeld in Perthshire about 1900. In many plants, a cross between parents of different species often shows a property called hybrid vigour - the offspring growing faster and tolerating a wider range of conditions than either parent can stand. In Britain, the Japanese larch does best on hilly districts in the milder, wetter west coast regions, on better drained slopes particularly where bracken grows.
Hybrid larch is preferred on drier, more adverse sites.
European larch is rarely planted in forests here now. Uses of the wood. . Larch poles are often used for rustic work such as furniture or sawn very thinly and treated with preservative for garden fencing panels. Larch logs are sawn into fencing and packaging products.