THE BIKCH-TREE FAMILY. 371 



species, of existing up to the last confines of land and perennial snow. 

 The species are timber trees for the most part, but are valued chiefly 

 for their ornamental character in landscape. Sixty have been dis- 

 tinguished, two of them being natives of our own country, and wild 

 near Manchester, as well as extensively planted. 



1. A tall forest-tree, in lightness, grace, and elegance unsurpassed, and dis- 



tinguishable, as far as the eye can reach, by the silvery whiteness of its 

 bark. The twigs are remarkably slender, and in the variety called 

 " pendula" droop for nearly their whole length, waving with the slightest 

 breath of air. Leaves varying from triangular to ovate or broadly heart- 

 shaped, unequally serrate, and pointed, supported on long and slender 

 petioles, glabrous, shining, and deciduous. Male flowers in cylindrical 

 light-brown catkins, with eight to twelve stamens under each scale, 

 usually pendulous, and nearly two inches long ; female flowers in com- 

 pact, greenish eatldns, not more than a third of the length of the males, 

 and appearing, along with them, in company with the young leaves. The 

 female c£ttkins, when ripe, are an inch or more in length, and break up 

 into numerous little wedge-shaped scales, each of which is accompanied 

 by a small, flat, and winged fruit resembling a seed. . . .Common Biech-xeee. 



2. A tree of inconsiderable stature, dark and rugged in its aspect, with 



crooked and spreading branches, and by no means picturesque if looked 

 at too near. "When the trunk has in any part been laid bare, or deprived 

 of its bark, exposure to the atmosphere for a little while causes it to 

 assume in that part, a pecuhar and characteristic red colour. Leaves 

 large, broadly ovate or roundish, very blunt at the upper end, sharply- 

 toothed, stalked, glabrous, and deciduous. "When young, they are 

 glutinous. (See Fig. 190.) Male catkins long, loose, deep reddish-brown, 

 growing two or three together on terminal and branched footstalks, and 

 pendulous ; female catkins not more than half an inch long, and seated 

 close to the males, both kinds appearing before the leaves come out, and 

 the males very conspicuous from their size and deep colour. The 

 females are, while ripening, oval, dark-green, and solid, like young fir- 

 cones ; afterwards they become hard and woody, the scales separating, 

 (but not falling from the axis, as they do in the birch) and allowing the 

 wingless seeds to fall out. The clusters of black and emptied relics 

 usually hang upon the trees through the winter, and often until the 

 following summer. The new males appear in September like those of 

 the hazle-nut, but not so conspicuously Common Aldee. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 1. Common Bihch — [Betula alba.) 

 Everywhere in hedgerows, woods, and plantations, but impossible 

 to say where truly wild. Apparently so on the banks of the Goyt, in 



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