FAGACEAE (BEECH FAMILY) 49 



B. populifolia, WHITE BIRCH. Bark dull, chalky- or ashy-white, 

 smooth and tight, the layers not readily exfoliating. Staminate catkins 

 usually solitary. Leaves triangular, very taper-pointed, smooth and 

 shining on both sides, tremulous on very slender petioles. Sandy or 

 rocky soil. Commonest near the coast. 



B. alba papyrifera, CANOE BIRCH. Bark lustrous, creamy or pink- 

 ish-white to bronze, freely splitting into paper-like layers. Staminate 

 catkins mostly 2 or 3. Young leaves pubescent beneath. Large shrub 

 or medium-sized tree. 



ALNUS 



Shrubs or small trees with few-scaled leaf-buds and solitary or 

 often racemose-clustered catkins. Flowers, in the following spe- 

 cies, developed in earliest spring before the 

 leaves, the catkins all coming from naked buds 

 formed the preceding season; fruit wingless, 

 or with a narrow dry margin. 



A. incana, SPECKLED ALDER. Shrub or small 

 tree, leaves broadly elliptical to ovate, mostly 

 rounded at base, sharply and doubly serrate, the 

 upper surface dark green, the lower mostly 

 downy, at least on the veins. Stipules lanceolate. 

 Swamps and borders of streams. 



. _., , Alnus incana, 



A. rugosa, SMOOTH ALDER. Shrub or small Speckled alder 



tree, leaves obovate, acute at base, sharply and 



almost regularly serrate with minute teeth, thickish, green on both 

 sides. Stipules oval. Sometimes intergrades with A. incana. 



FAGAGEAE (BEECH FAMILY) 



Monoecious trees or shrubs, with alternate, simple, straight- 

 veined leaves and deciduous stipules. The one-seeded nut enclosed 

 in a cupule consisting of more or less consolidated bracts which 

 become hard. 



FAGUS 



Trees with a close and smooth ash-gray bark, and undivided 

 strongly straight-veined leaves. The flowers appear at the same 

 time as the leaves, the yellowish Staminate ones arising from the 



SPRING FLORA 4 



