51 
BETULACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
coated on the lower surface and the margins with long white silky hairs, and less thickly covered with 
pale hairs on the upper surface; and at maturity they are thin and membranaceous, dark dull green 
above, light yellow-green and furnished with small tufts of white hairs in the axils of the veins below, 
from two and a half to six inches long, and from an inch and a half to three inches wide, with yellow 
midribs and numerous primary veins indistinct on the upper surface, and hairy and prominent on the 
lower, and obscure reticulate cross veinlets; they are borne on stout hairy petioles, deeply grooved on 
the upper side, and from three quarters of an inch to an inch long, and late in the autumn before 
falling turn a bright clear yellow. The stipules are ovate, acute, light green, or nearly white, scarious, 
and ciliate above the middle on the margins with soft white hairs. During the winter the staminate 
catkins are about three quarters of an inch in length and nearly a quarter of an inch in thickness, 
with ovate acute apiculate scales, bright red-brown above the middle, and light brown below it; and 
when they are fully grown and the flowers open just before the unfolding of the leaves in early spring 
they are from three to four inches long, a quarter of an inch thick, and bright golden color in 
general appearance, although the tips of the scales are still brown. 
one half to three quarters of an inch long, and about an eighth of an inch thick, with ovate pale green 
The strobiles, which are fully 
grown at midsummer, when they are dark green and lustrous, are oblong-ovoid, sessile, from an inch to 
an inch and a half in length and about half an inch thick; the scales are glabrous, with broad 
divergent rounded or acute lateral lobes. 
apex, and about as broad as its wing. 
The Black Birch is distributed from Newfoundland and the valley of the Saguenay River to 
northwestern Ontario,’ and southward through the northern United States to Delaware and southern 
The pistillate catkins are from 
scales rounded at the apex, and conspicuous light pink exserted styles. 
The nut is obovate, pointed at the base, rounded at the 
Indiana and I[lhnois,’ and along the Alleghany Mountains to western Florida and to central Kentucky 
and Tennessee. It grows on uplands, usually in rich soil, and is very abundant in Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario, where it attains a large size; it is one of the common forest trees in 
the northern states and on the Appalachian Mountains, growing to its greatest size on the western 
slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. 
The wood of Betula lenta is heavy, very strong, and hard, close-grained, with a satiny surface 
susceptible of receiving a beautiful polish; it is dark brown tinged with red, with thin ight brown or 
yellow sapwood composed of seventy or eighty layers of annual growth, and contains numerous obscure 
medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7617, a cubic foot weighing 47.47 
pounds. It is largely used in the manufacture of furniture and for fuel, and in the maritime provinces 
of Canada in ship and boat building. From the wood an oil used medicinally and as a flavor is 
distilled,? and beer, which is probably also made from that of the other American species, is obtained by 
fermenting the sugary sap.* 
What seems to be the earliest mention of the Black Birch appears in Josselyn’s New England 
1 Brunet, Cat. Vég. Lig. Can. 53.— Bell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. wood, the largest yield being in April and May. The oil of Birch 
Can. 1879-80, 55°.— Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 435. 
* Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. v. 85. 
3 The manufacture of Birch-oil is an important industry in sev- 
eral of the mountain counties of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
Young trees from ten to twenty-five feet in height are cut down, 
hauled to the distillery, and cut into pieces one or two inches long. 
These are put into large stills consisting of wooden boxes with 
copper bottoms, macerated in water, and distilled with a wood 
fire. 
barrel and cooled by cold water from a mountain stream. The 
The vapor is carried into a copper or tin worm placed in a 
steam condenses and flows from the coil as mixed oil and water, 
and the oil, being the heavier, settles in the bottom of the receiver. 
An average of about four pounds of oil is obtained from one ton of 
is identical in flavor, perfume, and chemical constituents with that 
obtained from Gaultheria procumbens, Linnzus ; it contains a large 
percentage of salicylic acid, and has been employed as a remedy for 
rheumatism. It was most largely used, however, as an aromatic 
stimulant, and as a flavoring agent, generally under the name of 
wintergreen oil, until replaced by the artificial oil of wintergreen 
made from salicylic acid and wood-alcohol, which has now largely 
replaced it, except in medicinal uses (Kennedy, Am. Jour. Pharm. 
ser. 4, xii. 49 ; xiv. 85. —Jobnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 252. — 
Breisch, Am. Jour. Pharm. lxiii. 579.— U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 
1728. — Trimble, Garden and Forest, viii. 303). 
4 Porcher, Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, 265. 
