96 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



the woods it is subject to rapid decay, and frequent- 

 ly one may meet with an old fallen specimen, appar- 

 ently sound if one judges by the look of the bark, 

 but really rotten to the core. The bark is water- 

 proof, and is used by the Indians and the North- 

 western hunters for the construction of canoes, the 

 seams of which are neatly sewed together and made 

 water-tight by the use of pitch. 



There are often great variations from the typical 

 forms of tree leaves. I have drawn one of these 

 variations, which may commonly be noticed in the 

 seedling paper birch. The specimen shows a strongly 

 double-toothed leaf, whose whole character — stem and 

 surface — was downy. The back of the leaf was par- 

 ticularly hairy, as well as the twig, which was some- 

 thing of an old gold color, characterized by the usual 

 dots of the Betula family. The leaf was soft to the 

 touch, and on the under side the veins were white, 

 with rather rusty-looking hairs. My drawing was 

 taken from a young shoot. 



Red or River Birch. The red birch, sometimes called river 

 Betula nigra. birch, is rather a Southern variety, 

 seen at its best south of Baltimore. The leaf at 

 the edge is very unevenly double-toothed, and its 

 aspect is alderlike. The outline is angularly egg- 

 shaped, and the stem is short (about half an inch 

 long) and downy. The whole leaf has a whitish- 



