foliage, and the graceful sweep of their limbs, than the birches. From the delicate and slender gray birch, throwing its thin leaves and often pensile spray lightly on the air, to the broadheaded black birch, with its rich, glossy and abundant foliage, weighing its pendulous branches almost to the ground,—no family affords such a variety of aspect. There are five birches in Massachusetts which are trees, besides one which is a shrub. They are thus distinguished : 1. The Black Birch, by having its bark dark colored; 2. The Yellow Birch,-bark yellowish, with a silvery lustre ; 3. The Red Birch,-bark reddish or chocolate-colored, very much broken and ragged; 4. The Canoe Birch,-bark white, with a pearly lustre; 5. The Gray or White Birch,-bark white, chalky, dotted with black; 6. The Dwarf or Shrub Birch,-bark covered with glandular points, a shrub. Michaux arranged the birches in two sections: one comprehending trees whose fertile aments are sessile and erect; the Black, the Yellow, the Red, and the Glandular, birches; the other, those whose fertile aments are stalked and pendulous, the Canoe, the White, and the common European. The division seems a very natural one, bringing together those which are most nearly allied in habit, and in the qualities of their wood. Sp. 1. THE BLACK BIRCH. SWEET BIRCH. B. lenta. Linn. Figured in Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 74. The black birch is easily distinguished by the dark color of its bark; and from this obtains the name by which it is almost universally known. From its resemblance, in bark and leaves, to a cherry tree, it is also sometimes called the cherry birch; and from the agreeable spicy odor and taste of the leaves and inner bark, it often has the name of the sweet birch, or fragrant birch, as in Bryant's lines on the murdered Traveller,— "The fragrant birch above him hung her tassels in the sky, The black birch is the most beautiful, and, for the useful properties of its wood, the most valuable of its family. Early in spring it expands its long aments, which hang like tassels of purple and gold, and continue for many days shedding beauty and fragrance, at a time when few other objects feel the kindly influences of the season; and it is amongst the first trees to put forth its leaves. In the forest, in the rich, cool, moist soils which it prefers, on mountain sides, or the banks of streams, it often attains the height of sixty or seventy feet. On an open plain, growing by itself, it is a round-headed tree, and from the length and slenderness of its somewhat tortuous branches, they become pendulous, forming the most graceful of the weeping trees. It is found in every county, but flourishes most in the mountainous districts. The light, winged seed often lodges and vegetates in crannies of almost inaccessible rocks, and thence pushes down its roots, over the bare rock, to a considerable distance, in search of a foothold in the soil. It is often, too, seen growing from the top of the mass of soil and stones adhering to the roots of an old, overturned tree. The trunk in small trees is covered with a smooth, dark purple bark, entire, or, in larger trees, with distant chinks. On very old trunks, it is broken into horizontal, straight-edged plates, which become loose at the end, and scale off in broad sheets. The spray is very slender, of a reddish bronze color, gradually deepening to a very dark polished bronze, almost black, dotted with conspicuous gray dots. The buds are conical and pointed. The leaves are two or three inches long, and one, or one and a half wide, oblong-ovate, heart-shaped at base, tapering to a point, finely and sharply but irregularly serrate, smooth and somewhat impressed on the veins above, paler, and with the veins straight and prominent, and hairy beneath, the under surface dotted with numerous resinous, but not viscid dots. They are on short curved footstalks sometimes a little hairy. On the lower parts of the branches, they are in twos, towards the ends, alternate. In autumn, they assume various shades of ochreous yellow, or pale orange, or an extremely delicate yellow, lighter than orange, nearly a lemon color. The male flowers are on cylindrical, pendulous catkins, from two to four inches long, and one quarter of an inch wide, set with loosely arranged scales. Each flower is within a broad-ovate, shield-like, pointed, brown scale, to which are attached two smaller ones below, and within, three thinner, bearded scales, supporting twelve stamens with single-lobed anthers, growing by twos on pedicels, with often a slender scale at the base of each. These catkins are towards the end of the branches, occupying each the place of a pair of leaves. The female flowers are on smaller catkins, about half an inch long and one eighth in diameter, lower on the branches, with two leaves at the base of each. The scales are close set, imbricate, small, green, rounded or pointed at the end, with an earlike lobe on each side at the base. Within each are three pairs of ovaries with awl-shaped stigmas. The fruit is erect, nearly sessile, elliptical, or cylindrical with rounded ends, an inch or somewhat less long, and half an inch thick, made up of shining, resinous scales of three equal lobes, closely imbricated, and having three seeds, ovate and with broad wings, within each. Michaux found this tree in Nova Scotia, in Maine, and "on the estate of Vermont," as Loudon has translated him; also in the Middle States and on the Alleghanies, throughout their whole extent, till they terminate in Georgia. The wood is easily wrought, and, as it has strength, firmness and durability, it is much used in the arts. It has a delicate rose color, which deepens from exposure, but never becomes dark, and the difference between the annual circles of different degrees of maturity, giving a rich, clouded, or, as it is technically called, landscape appearance, it is in request for the panels in the foot and head-boards of bedsteads, and in other cabinet furniture. It is sometimes used to make yokes, which proves its strength to be considerable. It is also used for joists, for bedsteads and for chairs, for which it is a beautiful material, though it does not bend so well as yellow birch. Small tubs are made of it, and it is sometimes used for back-boards in carriages. The black birch is excellent for fuel, next, indeed, to the rock maple, in the Green Mountains, and in the northern part of New England, where it comes to the greatest perfection. A decoction of the bark, with copperas, is used for coloring woollen a beautiful and permanent drab, bordering on wine color. In a pasture south of Meeting-house Pond, in Westminster, among the broad clumps or islands of broad-leaved laurel, I found a black birch in July, 1839, which, at three feet from the ground, measured nine feet and five inches in girth. This tree was remarkable for the projection of the roots just above the surface, for the deep rifts in the old bark, which peeled off in broad plates, and for an enormous fungus which had attached itself to the bottom of one of the cracks. This measured eighteen inches across, eleven in height, and projected eleven inches horizontally from the trunk. Sp. 2. THE YELLOW BIRCH. B. excelsa. Aiton. Figured in Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 73. In its native forests, the yellow birch is a lofty tree, lifting its head into the sunshine among the tall hemlocks, rock maples and ashes, with which it grows. It is distinguished by its yellowish bark of a soft silken texture, and silvery or pearly lustre. The recent and still growing shoots are slender, of a reddish, purplish, or deep bottle green, somewhat hairy, and dotted with gray. The older branchlets are of a polished copper or golden bronze, or of a dark alder green, with often a thin, grayish, transparent film scaling off horizontally in rolls. On the larger branches in young trunks, the bark begins to assume a metallic lustre, with the horizontal dots long and conspicuous, and the epidermis loose in narrow strips, hanging out like the frayed ends of narrow ribbons. The trunk then begins to take a yellowish color, and thin lichens intersperse their black-dotted, white clouds. On vigorous trunks of a foot in diameter, are seen long rolls of loose bark adhering by the middle or by one end; while, in very old trees, the trunk becomes rough, with large, broad, gray scales, separated by furrows, and giving lodgment for the mosses, and liverworts, and larger lichens, which abound in the deep shades of the primeval woods. The yellow birch is often found seven or eight feet in circumference, measured above the bulging of the roots, and with only two or three large branches, near the top, at sixty or seventy feet from the ground. The roots often swell out above the surface in a picturesque or sometimes fantastic manner. The leaves, except on the growing shoots, are in twos, on short, curved, hairy footstalks. When they first come out, they are covered with hair. They are oval or elliptic, or more or less egg-shaped, contracted towards the base and heart-shaped, tapering to a rather long point, more coarsely serrate than those of the black birch, the serratures prolonged, smooth or a little hairy above when mature, pale and hairy along the mid-rib beneath. On the green, hairy, growing shoots, the leaves are alternate, with short, taper, lance-shaped stipules, which soon fall off. In autumn, the leaves become of a soft, pale yellow. The catkins of the male flowers are two or three inches long, at the ends of the branches, somewhat larger and shorter than on the black birch, but, like them, hanging like golden and purple tassels on the branches, just as the leaves are beginning to unfold. The scales are slightly fringed. The aments of the fertile flowers are short and nearly erect, in the common axil of two leaves, on the sides or ends of the branchlets. When fully grown and mature, they form an egg-shaped cone, about an inch or an inch and a quarter long, and four or five eighths of an inch thick, nearly sessile, erect, and formed of stiff, tough, three-lobed scales, hairy without, and containing, within, three inversely kidney-shaped winged seeds, with the two brown styles in a notch at the top. The yellow birch has not often been cultivated for ornament, but it has great beauty. In travelling, we sometimes see it on the edge of a wood, with its abundant soft, green, often drooping foliage, between masses of which is seen the gleam of the light bronze trunk with its silver and pearly lustre,—showing what might be its effect introduced in ornamental woods. The wood of this tree is applied to numerous uses. Bending readily, it is particularly adapted to the making of the posts and bars of chairs. It is used for the staves of small and inferior casks, for boot-trees, and for joists and bedsteads. In Richmond, among the Shakers, floors are made of it, as also of the black birch. It is valuable as fuel. |