CHEEKY BIRCH, SWEET BIRCH; BLACK BIRCH (Betula lenta, 

 Linn.)- 50 to 80 feet. Symmetrical, round-headed tree, with 

 aromatic leaves and bark, slender, graceful drooping branches. 

 Bark brown, furrowed, and broken into irregular plates, coated 

 with remnants of the silky epidermis, with its horizontal slits, 

 like the bark on the smooth limbs. Inner bark sweet, spicy. 

 Wood reddish brown, heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, used 

 for furniture, in shipbuilding, and for fuel. Sap made into 

 beer. Leaves ovate, 2 to 6 inches long, doubly serrate, acute, 

 thin, dark, dull green above, yellow-green beneath, hairy on 

 veins and petiole; yellow in autumn. Flowers similar to 

 those of preceding species. Fruit, ripe in June, erect, smooth, 

 oblong cones, with 3-lobed bracts and winged nutlets. Dist.: 

 Newfoundland to western Ontario; south to Florida, Kentucky, 

 Tennessee, and Kansas. Common forest tree in the North. 



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