CHAP. CIY. BETULA‘CE®. BE’TULA 1711 
marked than this, which appears, however, rarely to 
have found a place in collections. Its leaves are nearly 
as large as those of the canoe birch (2B. papyracea) ; 
and they are remarkably angular. The stipules are 
unusually large, and more resemble those of the pla- 
tanus than the birch.” (Penny Cycl.) 
The most northerly situation in which this tree 
is found in the United States is in New Jersey, 
about 10 miles from New York; but it is abundant 
in Maryland, Virginia, the upper part of the Carolinas, 
and in Georgia. It is not, like the other species, /2% 
found growing in the midst of the forest, but only on 7 
the banks of rivers, accompanied by the Platanus 
occidentalis, A\cer eriocérpum, and some species of 
willow. It grows, with the greatest luxuriance, on the 
sides of limpid streams which have a gravelly bed, and 
the banks of which are not marshy. The wood of 
the red birch is compact, and very nearly white; and 
the colour of the sap wood and the heart wood is very nearly the same. 
Like that of the juneberry (Ameldnchier Botryapium), it is longitudinally 
marked by red vessels, which intersect each other in different directions. The 
negroes make bowls and trays of it, when they cannot procure poplar. The 
hoops for rice casks are made of its young shoots, and of branches not 
exceeding ] in. in diameter; and the spray makes better brooms than that 
of any other species of American birch. “ Among all the birches,” says 
Michaux, “this is the only species, the growth of which is invigorated by 
intense heat.” For this reason, he recommends it for cultivation in Italy, 
and, we may add, for the temperate regions of Australia. In the climate of 
London, it scarcely attains a timber-like size ; but there is a tree of it at Syon, 
of which we have given a portrait in our last volume, which is 47 ft. high ; one 
in the Fulham Nursery, which died in 1834, was 30 ft. high ; and one at Croome, 
40 years planted, is 45 ft. high. In all these places it is known as B. 
papyracea; which name it has obtained from the paper-like laminz of its 
epidermis, which separate and curl up for the whole length of the trunk ; 
and this not only in old trees, but in plants of three or four years’ growth. 
From this circumstance, it can never be mistaken for any other species of 
birch, either in winter or summer. The bark which comes nearest to it is 
that of B. daurica, as represented in the engraving of the trunk of an old 
tree of that species in Pallas’s Flora Rossica, There are plants at Messrs. 
Loddiges’s, and in several of the London nurseries. They are generally 
raised from imported seeds ; but seeds ripen in this country, when the tree 
has attained the age of six or eight years. Plants, in the London nurseries, 
are from Is. to 1s. 6d. each ; and seeds Is. per quart. At New York, plants 
are 25 cents each, and seeds | dollar and 50 cents per pound, 50 cents per 
quart, or 8 dollars per bushel. 
¥ 10. B. exce’tsa H. Kew. The tall Birch. 
Identification. Ait. Hort. Kew., 3. p. 337.; Willd. Sp. Pl., 4. p. 464., Baum., p. 60.; Pursh FI. 
Amer. Sept., 2. p. 261.; N. Du Ham., +2 205. 
a fs - tea Michx. Arb., 2. p. 152.; ? B. nigra Du Roi Herb. Baum., 1. p. 148. ; yellow 
rch, Amer. 
Engravings. Michx. Arb., 2. t. 5. ; Wats. Dend. Brit., t. 95. ; N. Du Ham., 3. t. 52.; Willd. Baum., 
t. 1 f. $ ; and our fig. 1564. from Michaux, and fig. 1565. from the Nouv. Du Ham, 
Spec. Char., §c. Leaves ovate, acute, serrated ; petioles pubescent, shorter 
than the peduncles, Scales of the strobiles having the side lobes roundish. 
(Willd. Sp. Pl., iv. p. 464.) A tree, from 70 ft. to 80 ft. high, in North 
America; and flowering there in May and June. Introduced about 1767. 
Description, §c. The specific name of excélsa, Michaux observes, is in- 
judiciously applied to this species, as it leads to an erroneous opinion that it 
surpasses every other in height. It is a beautiful tree, and its trunk is of 
5T 
