204 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



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 dis- 

 tance, 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 pur- 

 ple 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 coni- 

 cal 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 yel- 

 low, lighter than orange, nearly a lemon color. 



The male flowers are on cylindrical, pendulous catkins, from 



