988 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



cultivation. 1 Var. purpurea, with reddish leaves, was sent out in 1892 by Ellwanger 

 and Barry, of Rochester, New York. B. ccerulea, Blanchard, is apparently a form 

 of this species, with dull bluish-green leaves, ovate rather than deltoid in outline, 

 which is common on hills in northern New England and eastern Canada. 



This is the smallest of the arborescent birches of America, and grows usually 

 on dry, gravelly or sandy, barren soil, or on the edges of swamps and lakes. Its 

 area of distribution extends from Nova Scotia and the valley of the St. Lawrence 

 southward to Delaware, and westward through northern New England and New 

 York to the southern shores of Lake Ontario. It is very abundant in the coast 

 region of New England and the middle states, and springs up in abundance after 

 forest fires or on abandoned farm lands. 



It was first cultivated in England by Archibald, Duke of Argyll, at Whitton, 

 near Hounslow, in 1750, and is rarely met with now except in botanical gardens. 

 At Kew, the largest specimen, growing near the end of the rhododendron dell, is 

 35 feet high and about 6 inches in diameter. It produces fruit regularly. Loudon 

 mentions a birch supposed to be of this species at Dodington Park in Gloucestershire, 

 60 feet high in 1838, but no such tree now survives there. (A. H.) 



BETULA NIGRA, Red Birch 



Betula nigra, Linnasus, Sp. PL 982 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1710 (1838); Sargent, 

 Silva N. Amer. ix. 61, t. 452 (1896), and Trees N. Amer. 198 (1905); Winkler, Betulacea, 58 

 (1904). 



Betula lanulosa, Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am. ii. 181 (1803). 



Betula rubra, Michaux f., Hist. Arb. Am. ii. 142 (181 2). 



A tree, attaining in America 80 or 90 feet in height, with a trunk occasionally 

 5 feet in diameter, and usually divided into two or three diverging limbs at 15 or 20 

 feet above the ground. Bark at first smooth, reddish brown ; with age, separating 

 into successive layers, which curl up and persist on the trunk as thin papery scales 

 of various tints of red and brown ; ultimately turning black and becoming an inch 

 thick and deeply furrowed at the base of old trunks. Young branchlets tomentose, 

 with numerous glands ; older branchlets glabrous and roughened with the remains 

 of the glands. Leaves (Plate 270, Fig. 13), i| to 3 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, 

 deltoid-ovate, with cuneate base and acute apex ; margin non-ciliate, coarsely 

 and irregularly bi-serrate, and often lobulate ; nerves seven or eight pairs ; upper 

 surface shining, with fine pubescence mainly on the nerves ; lower surface greyish, 

 with pubescence chiefly on the midrib and nerves, and with numerous white glands ; 

 petiole tomentose and glandular. 



Fruiting-catkins (Plate 270, Fig. 13), cylindrical, 1 to i| inch long, inch in 

 diameter, erect, on stout tomentose peduncles, about \ inch long : scales pubescent 



1 There is a var. laciniata, and also a var. purpurea assigned to B. verrucosa in Spath's and Simon-Louis's nurseries, 

 which may be what Loudon referred to. 



