64 BETULACEAE 



Distribution. — The American Hazel ranges, in a variety of 

 soils and situations, throughout the temperate part of eastern 

 North America, from Maine westward to Saskatchewan and 

 southward to Florida and Oklahoma. In Illinois, it grows 

 through most of the state, although it has not thus far been 

 widely collected or reported. It flowers in March and April, 

 and the fruit ripens from July to September. 



The Beaked Hazelnut, C. cornuta Marchant, fig. 9, has been 

 reported, possibly erroneously, in Morgan and Pike counties. 

 This species differs from the foregoing in that the twigs, at first 

 covered only with scattered long hairs, become glabrate, and in 

 that the bracts that surround the fruit are united and pro- 

 longed into the tubular, bristly beak for which the species is 

 named. 



BETULA (Tournefort) Linnaeus 

 The Birches 



The birches are trees and shrubs which bear alternate, broad- 

 bladed, toothed leaves, and produce both staminate and fertile 

 flowers in catkins. In the staminate catkins there are 3 flowers 

 to each scale, and each flower has 1 calyx scale and 4 stamens 

 with 1-celled anthers. In the pistillate catkins there are 2 or 3 

 flowers per scale, each of which has a naked ovary with 2 spread- 

 ing stigmas but without a calyx scale. The ovary ripens into a 

 winged, scalelike nutlet. The buds on the birches are sessile 

 and scaly. The staminate catkins are sessile also, may be ter- 

 minal or lateral, and are formed in the summer and expand 

 the following spring. The pistillate catkins stand at the ends 

 of short, 2-leaved, lateral branchlets. 



In Illinois, the shrubby birches are represented by the one 

 following species. 



BETULA PUMILA Linnaeus 



Dwarf Birch 



The Dwarf Birch, fig. 10, is a relatively low shrub 3 to 10 

 feet high, with reddish-brown, smooth bark, characteristic birch- 

 shaped leaves, and, in late summer, catkins, which are to pro- 

 duce flowers the succeeding year. The leaves are oval, obovate 

 or nearly orbicular, and vary considerably in size, ranging from 



