144 AMENTACE^ 



white dots. The leaves are rigid, and somewhat paler beneath, l3nt the 

 foliage has an almost uniform tint of pale yellowish-green, and is also 

 sprinkled with the dots, which are glands containing the resin ; and they 

 produce, when bruised, the aromatic odour of the plant. The reddish-brown 

 catkins appear at the end of the summer, and, remaining through the winter, 

 may be seen in the spring before the leaves are unfolded. The berries are 

 very small, and covered, like the leaves, with minute resinous glands. 

 Though the pistilliferous and stamen-bearing flowers are generally produced 

 on difterent plants, yet they sometimes occur on the same shrub. The 

 Germans call this Bog Myrtle Gemeine fFaclis Sfraiich. 



2. Birch (Bc'iula). 



1. Common Birch (B. dlba). — Leaves sometimes egg-shaped and 



rounded at the base, sometimes wedge-shaped, at others triangular-acute, 



doubly serrated ; fruit broad, inversely egg-shaped, with a broad margin ; 



perennial. There is, surely, a peculiarly soft and soothing tone of music in 



the Birch-leaves, when — 



' ' Rippling through the branches goes the sunshine, 

 Among the leaves that palpitate for ever !" 



And so thought the American poet Lowell, when he wrote^ 



' Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble, 

 Thou sympathisest still : wild and unquiet 

 I fling me down ; the ripple like a river 

 Flows valley-ward where calmness is, and by it 

 My lieart is floated down into the land of quiet." 



But we might tell of many poets who have praised, both for its grave and 

 its gentle utterances, the "fragrant Birk," "the Lady of the woods." The 

 tree seems formed rather for elegance than strength, yet it is remarkable for 

 its power of enduring bleak northerly or mountain winds, among Avhich many 

 a tree of sturdier frame would perish. Like the beings to whom Coleridge 

 likens it, it is strong by its very weakness, bending before the storm which 

 would rend the stronger bough. It is a native of the coldest regions, and 

 the dwarf species is the last tree which the traveller finds in his course to 

 the North Pole, becoming smaller as he advances to the Arctic Circle, and 

 being in Lapland so stunted, that a whole tree — leaf, stem, and branches — 

 may be spread out between the leaves of a book. It grows in the cold 

 countries of Europe and Asia, and is the commonest tree in Eussia — whole 

 forests of Birch covering extensive districts, and without the intermingling 

 of any other tree. In warmer countries it is found wild chiefly on moun- 

 tainous or bleak spots, and in England it is therefore not so frequently wild 

 as in some other lands, though familiar to us, because so often ornamenting 

 the park or shrubbery. But before the forests of our country fell beneath 

 the progress of civilization, the Birch was probably more plentiful ; and 

 Berkshire and some other places, as well as several family names, are believed 

 to owe their origin to the Birk or Birchen tree. On the Highland mountains 

 it is found at an elevation of 2,500 feet. 



There is a drooping variety of the common species, known as the Weep- 



