DECIDUOUS TREES. 379 



heated summer air, its white bark glistening through the bright 

 foliage and sparkling in the sun, to enable one to form a true im- 

 pression of its character. Professor Wilson in his " Isle of Palms " 

 thus alludes to a birch tree : 



" on the green slope 



Of a romantic glade, we sate us down, 



Amid the fragrance of the yellow broom ; 



While o'er our heads the weeping birch tree streamed 



Its branches, arching like a fountain shower," 



This birch is one of the most rapid growers among ornamental 

 trees, attaining a height of thirty feet in ten years. 



THE EUROPEAN WEEPING BIRCH. B. pendula. This is the old 

 weeping variety of the birch, and nearly all the encomiums of the 

 preceding newer variety will apply to this, which would be perfect 

 " were t' other dear charmer away." The former is a little more 

 delicate and decided in each of the peculiarities that make them 

 both beautiful. Both of them are of more vigorous habit than our 

 own very pretty white or mountain birch. They will probably grow 

 sixty to seventy feet high, with a breadth of head somewhat less. 

 The engraving of the preceding variety illustrates also the usual 

 form of the common weeping birch when from thirty to forty feet 

 high ; which height they are likely to attain in ten or twelve years 

 after planting. 



THE EUROPEAN WHITE BIRCH. B. alba, FIG. 119. 



(Fig. 119.) This is the common wild birch of 

 the continent, from which the above beautiful 

 varieties have sprung. It forms a tree some- 

 what larger than our own white or mountain 

 birch, which in most respects it resembles. 



THE AMERICAN BIRCHES. We quote 

 Downing's excellent descriptions entire. 



" The American sorts, and particularly the 

 black birch, start into leaf very early in the 

 spring, and their tender green is agree- 

 able to the eye at that season ; while the swelling buds and young 



