Larch
Botanical: Larix Decidua
Family: Pinaceae
Homeopathic remedy: Not used.
Description: The Larch is a member of the Pines family. It is a conifer tree with a grayish brown outer bark. Loose elongated plates reveal a reddish inner bark young stems, that are yellowish and furrowed. Flowers are monoecious, both male and female strobili cover tree in early spring. The purple cones (fruits) dry to brown young cones somewhat showy ovoid, with pubescent scales on backside, overlapped but not reflexed. The soft, flat needles, bright green in spring, darkening with maturity, found in groups on spurs or in a spiral arrangement down long branches turn yellow in the autumn and fall down.
Medicinal uses: Cough, Cold, Frostbite
Keywords: Expecting to Fail, Not as good as anyone else.
Compare: Elm
Dr Bach's description: For those who do not consider themselves as good or capable as those around them, who expect failure, who feel that they will never be a success, and so do not venture or make a strong enough attempt to succeed.
Essence: The Larch tree is a deciduous conifer. This means, that unlike other conifers, it drops its foliage in the autumn. This symbolizes, that the Larch does not even attempt the long fight for survival in the winter as other conifers. It drops it's foliage to the ground in the symbol of surrender.
The Larch person has similar traits to the Larch tree. He considers himself to be worse than the people surrounding him. He feels, that he is not as good and not as capable as they are. He is pessimistic about the outcome of his efforts and he expects his failure in all his actions. This results in a situation, where the Larch person doesn't try hard enough to succeed and the pessimistic anticipation of his failure causes the negative outcome.
The problem is, that during the course of life (based on a series of unfortunate events), the Larch has learned to accept the fact, that he will always fail, and knowing that he does not even try to succeed. This can, of course lead only to another failure. The Larch people must learn to forget their past failures, not to anticipate a negative outcome, but to hope for the success in their lives.