BETULACE^ 



199 



petioles slender, slightly flattened, tomentose, about ^ long; stipules ovate, rounded 

 or acute at the apex, pale green, covered below with white hairs. Flowers: stami- 

 nate aments clustered, during the winter about ^' long and -^^' thick, with ovate 

 rounded dull chestnut-brown lustrous scales, becoming 2'-3' long and ^' thick; pistil- 

 late aments about ^' long, with bright green ovate scales pubescent on the back, 

 rounded or acute at the apex, and ciliate, with long white hairs. Fruit ripening in 

 May and June; strobiles cylindrical, pubescent, I'-l-^' long, ^' thick, erect on stout 

 tomentose peduncles ^ long; nut ovate or oval, ^' long, pubescent or puberulous at 

 the apex, about as broad as its thin puberulous wing ciliate on the margin. 



A tree, 80-90 high, with a trunk often divided 15-20 above the ground 

 into 2 or 3 slightly diverging limbs, and sometimes 5 in diameter, slender branches 

 forming in old age a narrow irregular picturesque crown, and branchlets coated at 

 first with thick pale or slightly rufous tomentum gradually disappearing before 

 winter, becoming dark red and lustrous, dull red-brown in their second year, and 

 then gradually growing slightly darker until the bark separates into the thin flakes 

 of the older branches; or often sending up from the ground a clump of several 



small spreading stems forming a low bushy tree. Winter-buds ovate, acute, about 

 ^' long, covered in summer with thick pale tomentum, glabrous or slightly puberulous, 

 lustrous and bright chestnut-brown in winter, the inner scales strap-shaped, light 

 brown tinged with red, and coated with pale hairs. Bark on young stems and large 

 branches thin, lustrous, light reddish brown or silvery gray, marked by narrow 

 slightly darker longitudinal lenticels, separating freely into large thin papery scales 

 persistent for several years, and turning back and showing the light pink-brown 

 tints of the freshly exposed inner layers, becoming at the base of old trunks from 

 f'-l' thick, dark red-brown, deeply furrowed and broken on the surface into thick 

 closely appressed scales. Wood light, rather hard, strong, close-grained, light 

 brown, with pale sapwood of 40-50 layers of annual growth; used in the manufacture 

 of furniture, woodenware, wooden shoes, and in turnery. 



Distribution. Banks of streams, ponds, and swamps, in deep rich soil often 

 inundated for several weeks at a time; northeastern Massachusetts, Long Island, 

 New York, southward to western Florida through the region east of the Alleghany 

 Mountains except in the immediate neighborhood of the coast, through the Gulf 



