The Birches 



divergent limbs that support the pendulous horizontal branchlets. 

 No birch loves the stream borders more ardently than this Southern 

 member of the family. The lustrous leaves do not conceal the 

 flying silken tatters of bark which cover the tree to its leafy 

 twigs the year round. It is foolish to call this tree nigra, for it 

 is not black but red, from top to bottom. It is at its best along 

 the bayous of the lower Mississippi, where its roots and base of 

 trunk are inundated for half the year. 



The fruits of the red birch are ripe in June, and the wind, 

 shaking the erect cones, scatters the seeds on the rich land from 

 which the water has subsided. Here they germinate at once, and 

 are rooted, vigorous little seedlings by the time the floods return, 

 able to keep their heads above water, and to thrive like their 

 parents, adding colour and grace of line and motion to the land- 

 scapes of many different regions. 



It is a surprise to find this, our semi-aquatic and southern- 

 most birch, growing in apparent complacency and comfort in 

 dry, upland soil in the New England States and Minnesota. 

 But so it behaves in cultivation. It well exemplifies the versatility 

 of the family. 



Cherry Birch, Sweet Birch, Black Birch (Betula lenia, 

 Linn.) Handsome, round-headed tree, 50 to 80 feet high, 

 symmetrical, with slender, often tortuous but graceful limbs, 

 lower ones drooping; twigs delicate, polished. Bark dark brown, 

 broken by furrows into thick irregular plates which show frag- 

 ments of the smooth, silky bark that covers young limbs. Lenti- 

 cels prominent as horizontal lines; inner bark aromatic, spicy. 

 IVood dark brown, reddish, heavy, strong, hard, close grained. 

 Buds slender, acute, brown, \ inch long. Leaves ovate, 2 to 6 

 inches long, pointed, doubly serrate, dull, dark green above, 

 yellow-green below; midrib yellow; veins prominent, straight, 

 downy; petioles short. Flowers before leaves, April; staminate 

 catkins, 3 to 4 inches long, purplish yellow, pendulous; pistillate, 

 erect, sessile, ^ to i inch long; bracts hairy, ovate. Fruit, June, 

 erect cones, sessile, scales broad, of three equal, rounded lobes; 

 nuts with narrow wings, tapering at base. Preferred habitat, 

 fertile soil, moist and well drained. Distribution, Newfoundland 

 to western Ontario; south to Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and 

 Kansas. Uses: Occasionally cultivated for shade and ornament; 

 wood used for wheel hubs, furniture and fuel; inner bark yields 



'73 



