82 



RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 



sounding his alarm. It was old Anacreon 

 who said : 



'• Happy the cicadas' lives, 

 For tliey all have voiceless wives." 



What depth of conniil)iaI experience sug" 

 gested these ungallant lines? Daily we ex- 

 pect to hear the katydid, due in this part 

 of the world about the 8th of August. 

 When we sa}' daily, let no one suppose that 

 we are ignorant of their habit of singing at 

 at night. 



We have often wished that Tennj-son, 

 who has done so much to embalm the P^ng- 

 lish wild flowers, could know our golden 

 rods and asters. The}' would well grace an 

 Arthusian idyl. Our own poets are begin- 

 ning to comprehend them, and we find many 

 American verses aglow with these Septem- 

 ber blossoms. Other composites, too, are 

 prominent in the landscape, notably the tall 

 purple thoroughworts {Eupatorium ijurpu- 

 reum) and the iron-weed, or Vernonia. The 

 common white thorough wort is not very 

 showy, but is curious from its perfoliate 

 leaves. We mean by this that the leaves 

 are opposite, and unite around the main 

 stem or axis, so as to leave a sort of cup at 

 the junction. In some plants, like the teasel, 

 this cup is full of water, and isolates the 

 portion of stem above from the approach of 

 unwelcome insects. Flying creatures, on 

 the contrary, like bees, are welcomed by 

 many alluring devices, as by color, nectar, 

 or pollen. Very strange and interesting is 

 this whole matter of tlie relation of insects 

 to flowers. 



The emerald globes of wild grape, in the 

 happy terms of Mis. Whitman, now begin 

 to '' turn to amethyst." If any are yet 

 ignorant of this author's "- Still Day in 

 Autumn," they should find and read it. Few 

 word-[)ictures are truer to nature, or so 

 tinged with local color. Why cannot we 

 have her prose pieces collected and published 

 as well as her poems? Everything she 

 wrote was a finished com|)osition, in which 

 each word was chosen and weighed for its 

 appropriateness. Her name must ever 

 stand high in our Rhode Island Valhalla. 



We should not leave this subject without 

 a word of tribute to the cardinal flowers, the 

 summer's crowning glory. By some cool 

 stream, glassy from its depth, and over- 

 hung with alders and willows, over which 

 again the larger trees U^viu gotliic arches, 



we will see long ranks of scarlet cardinals 

 stand majestic. This is the place to view 

 and prize them. The\' are of the woods 

 woodsy ; their charm is lost by plucking. 



w. w. B. 

 BuTTONwooDS, Aug. 10, 1886. 



Native Forest Trees of Rhode Island. 



Number XVIII. 



BY L. W. RUSSELL. 



The Birches. — BETULAC.?i. 

 7'he Black Birch, Betula lenta. 



There are five species of birch found na- 

 tive in Rhode Island. They are the black 

 birch, B. lenta, the yellow, B. excelsa, the 

 red, B. nu/ra^the white, B. alba, the paper, 

 B. papyracoe. Of these, B. nif/ra and -B. 

 papyracm are simply local, and the others, 

 except the white birch, can hardly be re- 

 garded as common. 



The birches, as a genus of trees, must 

 take a second rank in importance in this 

 state. Farther north, the}- are, relatively, 

 more numerous and important. In the 

 northern parts of New England the birches 

 occupy, as the chief forest tree, extensive 

 tracts. These are frequently found along 

 the flanks of the mountains, belts of wood, 

 almost exclusivel}' of 3ellow birch. In the 

 British Territory of North America the 

 birches form the chief growth of immense 

 tracts. Approaching the higher latitudes 

 these trees appear gradually more dwarfed, 

 until near the Arctic Circle they dwindle to 

 mere knotty, compact shrubs a foot or two 

 high, the last of woody growths, except the 

 willows. 



Some of the .birches are among the most 

 graceful and attractive of deciduous trees. 

 The black birch, when freely developed, is 

 in this state, a large, round-headed s\'m- 

 metrical tree, with long slender limbs, and 

 dense, heavy foliage, giving the branches a 

 weeping tendency. But few such trees are 

 seen as the}' are rarely left single. They 

 are usually found in Rhode Island along 

 the banks of streams and ponds, where the 

 location is cool, and the roots can find abund- 

 ant moisture. Although nowhere very 

 abundant, they are scattered in consider- 

 able numbers, in the locations named. 



