208 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



At Lanesboro', I measured, in 1838, a yellow birch, of ten 

 feet seven inches girth at the ground. 



Sp. 3. The Red Birch. B. nigra. Aiton. 

 Figured in Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 72. 



This tree is somewhat different in aspect and character from 

 the other birches. It is usually found bending over a stream 

 with its roots always in the water, or growing, in company with 

 the swamp white oak and red maple, in places which, during one 

 half the year, are inundated. In such situations, it is rarely 

 erect, but commonly bends towards the water. When erect and 

 standing alone, it is a singularly graceful tree, with its upper 

 limbs long and sweeping out like those of an elm, and its trunk 

 almost clothed with small, leafy, pendulous branches. Usually, 

 it is remarkable for throwing out many small branches near 

 the ground, and for the denseness and multitude of its branches 

 above. The stem, in trees thirty feet high, is covered with 

 a reddish-white bark more loose and torn than that of any 

 other tree. The external bark, wanting the great tenacity of 

 the white and canoe birches, separates, in flakes an inch or two 

 broad, adhering by one end, while the other projects like an 

 ample fringe. The color of this loose bark, when seen by 

 transmitted light, as we see it from the ground, is a light red ; 

 when seen by reflected light it is a reddish brown or chocolate 

 color. The trunk on old trees is dark gray, very rough, with 

 little resemblance to that of any other birch except the black, 

 and very much like the black cherry, but not so dark. 



The recent shoots are brown and downy; those of a year or 

 more are black, dotted with light gray. The branches are very 

 numerous, small, dependent, with bark on the larger ones 

 brownish or whitish red, and excessively ragged. Leaves heater- 

 shaped, or rhombic, the larger ones three or three and a half 

 inches long, and two or two and a half wide, uniformly acute at 

 the base and at the extremity, conspicuously doubly serrate, 

 bright green above, glaucous beneath. The leaf-stalks are short, 

 and, with the leaf, downy when recently expanded. The bark 

 within is of an ochrey orange red ; the wood, white and hard. 



