THE BIRCH TREE. ^^K" 



farmer. On account of the keen acidity of the fruit, it is 

 made the emblem of Tartness. We are also told that the 

 flowers are endued with such extreme irritability, that at the 

 lightest touch, all the stamens coil themselves around the 

 pistil : hence they exhibit the characteristic sharpness of 

 persons whose anger is instantaneously aroused by the most 

 trivial causes. 



THE BIRCH TREE [Bctiila /r;^^i^///<^.)— Gracefulness. 



This species of the Birch is an exceedingly graceful tree. 



Coleridge speaks of it as 



" Most beautiful 

 Of forest trees, the lady of the woods ;" 



a title which it fully deserves. Its spray is more slender 

 than that of other species, and also larger. The foliage has 

 an elegant pensile appearance, as the weeping w^illow, and 

 like it is set in motion by the faintest breath of zephyr. In 

 his poem, the " Isle of Palms," Wilson has observed this, 

 and applied the epithet, "weeping," to our tree, — 



" On the green slope 

 Of a romantic glade we sate us down, 

 Amid the fragrance of the yellow broom, 

 While o'er our heads the Weeping Birch-tree streamed 

 Its branches, arching like a fountain shower." 



The Birch is of rapid growth, and, at any age, one or two 

 arc a pleasing addition to small plantings in the vicinity of o 



our dwellings. 



26 



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