BETULA LUTE A, MICHX. F. 63 



Betula lutea, Michx. f. 



Yellow Birch. Gray Birch. 



Habitat and Range. Low, rich woodlands, mountain slopes. 



Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Rainy river. 



New England, abundant northward ; common throughout, 

 from borders of lowland swamps to 1000 feet above the sea 

 level ; more common at considerable altitudes, where it often 

 occurs in extensive patches or belts. 



South to the middle states, and along the mountains to Tennessee 

 and North Carolina ; west to Minnesota. 



Habit. A large tree, at its maximum in northern New 

 England 60-90 feet high and 2-4 feet in diameter at the 

 base. In the forest the main trunk separates at a consider- 

 able height into a few large branches which rise at a sharp 

 angle, curving slightly, forming a rather small, irregular head, 

 widest near the top ; while in open ground the head is broad- 

 spreading, hemispherical, with numerous rather equal, long 

 and slender branches, and a fine spray with drooping tend- 

 encies. In the sunlight the silvery-yellow feathering and 

 the metallic sheen of trunk and branches make the yellow 

 birch one of the most attractive trees of the New England 

 forest. 



Bark. Bark of trunks and large limbs in old trees gray or 

 blackish, lustreless, deep-seamed, split into thick plates, stand- 

 ing out at all sorts of angles ; in trees 6-8 inches in diameter, 

 scarf-bark lustrous, parted in ribbon-like strips, detached at 

 one end and running up the trunk in delicate, tattered fringes ; 

 season's shoots light yellowish-green, minutely buff-dotted, 

 woolly-pubescent, becoming in successive seasons darker and 

 more lustrous, the dots elongating into horizontal lines. Aro- 

 matic but less so than the bark of the black birch ; not readily 

 detachable like the bark of the canoe birch. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Buds conical, inch long, mostly 

 appressed, tips of scales brownish. Leaves simple, in alter- 

 nate pairs or scattered singly along the stem; 3-5 inches 



