54 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. BETULACES. 
stipules are ovate, acute, light green, tinged with pink above the middle, and about half an inch long, 
and soon turn brown and fall after the unfolding of the leaf. The staminate aments are from three 
quarters of an inch to an inch long, and about an eighth of an inch thick during the winter, with ovate 
rounded scales light chestnut-brown and lustrous above the middle, and ciliate on the margins; and 
when the flowers open in early spring they are from three to three and a half inches im length, and a 
third of an inch in thickness, their scales being then pale yellow-green below the middle and dark 
brown above. The pistillate catkins are about two thirds of an inch long, with acute scales pale green 
below, light red and tipped with clusters of long white hairs at the apex, and pilose on the back. The 
strobiles, which ripen late in the autumn, are erect, sessile, or short-stalked, oblong-ovoid, from an inch 
to an inch and a half in length, and about three quarters of an inch in thickness, and are covered by 
broad or narrow wedge-shaped scales pubescent on the back, especially toward the base, and irregularly 
and sometimes equally three-lobed at the apex with acute or rounded lobes. The nut is oval or 
obovate, and about an eighth of an inch long, with a wing rather narrower than the seed. 
The Yellow Birch, which is one of the largest deciduous-leaved trees of the northern forests of 
northeastern North America, is distributed from Newfoundland along the northern shores of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence to those of Abittibi Lake and the valley of Rainy River,’ and southward through 
the northern states to northern Delaware, along the Alleghany Mountains to the high peaks of North 
Carolina and Tennessee, and to northern Minnesota. It usually inhabits moist uplands, growing in 
rich soil, and is exceedingly abundant, and attains its largest size in the eastern provinces of Canada 
and in northern New England and New York; in Ontario it is smaller, and in southern New England 
and southward it is usually rare and a small tree ; in the southern states it occurs only near the summits 
of the high mountains, and is stunted and often shrubby in habit. 
Betula lutea is one of the most valuable timber-trees of the north. The wood is heavy, very 
strong, hard, and close-grained, with a satiny surface susceptible of receiving a beautiful polish; it is 
hght brown tinged with red, with thin nearly white sapwood,’ and contains numerous obscure medullary 
rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6553, a cubic foot weighing 40.84 pounds. 
It is largely used in the manufacture of furniture, of button and tassel moulds, pill and match boxes, 
and the hubs of wheels, and for fuel. 
The Yellow Birch, as it grows among the Pines, Maples, and Elms of the northern forest, is often 
a magnificent object with its great trunk, lustrous bark, and broad head of graceful branches, but it 
requires low temperatures and abundant moisture to develop its beauty, and even in southern New 
England it is rarely a handsome tree. 
? Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 53.— Bell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. cut in northern New York, is twenty-three and a half inches in 
Can. 1879-80, 50°. — Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 436. diameter inside the bark, and is three hundred and six years old, 
* The log specimen in the Jesup Collection of North American with two and a half inches of sapwood composed of seventy-six 
Woods in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, layers of annual growth. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCCCXLIX. Beruta tute. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 7. A seed, enlarged. 
2. Seale of a staminate ament, rear view, enlarged. 8. A winter branch with staminate aments, natural size. 
3. Pistillate flowers with their scale, front view, enlarged. 9. A fertile winter-bud, and leaf-scars, enlarged. 
4. A fruiting branch, natural size. 10. A sterile winter-bud, enlarged. 
5. Scale of a fruiting ament, enlarged. 11. End of a young branchlet with stipules and unfolding 
6. A nut, enlarged. leaves, natural size. 
