Birches 275 



A. almfolia Nutt. (164), Sascatoon Berry, a western species, is smaller, 

 beginning to flower when two to three feet high, and is later in bloom- 

 ing, otherwise similar to the above. 



A. Asiatica Endl. (165) (Japonica), a Japanese species, differs by the 

 bright scarlet fruit, which hangs on until leaf fall, and is a stronger 

 grower. 



BIRCHES 



Betula. Some thirty-five species, all of northern distribution, large, 

 medium, and small trees and some shrubs (B. nana). There are tw'o 

 groups distinguishable, which differ very much ornamentally, the white 

 or paper birches, and the gray or black birches. The former are small 

 trees and comparatively short-lived, characterized by their conspicuous 

 white bark, peeling more readily in sheets, and usually with finer foli- 

 age than the gray birches, which have a darker, more compact, less 

 flaky bark, and a simpler, coarser leaf form. It is the white birches, 

 and especially the cut-leaved European variety, which, owing to their 

 delicate, graceful foliage, turning golden-yellow, their slender branches 

 often with pendent branchlets, and their pure white bark, made Heniy 

 Ward Beecher call them (after Tennyson) "the ladies among trees." 

 Birches, especially the white ones, are among the most light-needing 

 species, and are very rapid, but, with the exception of the yellow birch, 

 not persistent growers. They are adaptive, especially the white ones, to 

 poor, sandy soils, and to any soils not wet (except the cherry birch). 

 Having a tracing root system, they are easily transplanted, but as their 

 fibrils are very delicate, this is preferably done in early spring. As 

 single specimens for small places or near the house, or in groups along 

 watercourses, or on rocky ledges, or grouped with larch and hemlock, 

 the conifers of similar grace, they are highly commendable. The white 

 bark being very conspicuous, such grouping with more somber surround- 

 ings brings best effect. Unfortunately, the white birch, especially the 

 cut-leaved variety, suffers from a wood borer, which often becomes 

 destructive. 



B. alba Linn. (166), the European Birch (botanically, several species 

 of small difference are distinguished), is the handsomest, the most 

 graceful of the white birches, to which the above description applies most 

 typically, and this, in its natural type, and still more in its cut-leaved 

 form, with its pendulous branchlets and gossamer-like trace rj^ of foli- 

 age, is most in use. It s'lould not be confounded with the much l.^ss 



