The Birches 



H. Marguerite Hess 



Lyons Falls, N. Y. 



"Birch" by some is derived from Bety its Celtic name; by others 

 from the Latin, batuere, to beat, because the fasces of the Roman 

 lictors, which were always made of birch rods, were used to drive 

 back the people. 



The Birches are a family of exceedingly graceful and attractive 

 trees, and charm quite as much in winter by the color of their 

 stems and the delicacy of their twigs, as they do in summer by the 

 fresh green of their foliage. They vary in appearance according 

 to the places where they grow. If shaded by other trees in the 

 woods, their trunks are tapering, tall and free from branches; but 

 when they grow in open fields and the lateral branches develop, 

 their general outline is bushy and far less attractive; but unlike 

 other trees, birches are improved by not having full development. 

 The birch has been known from the earliest ages and is found in 

 Europe, Asia and North America. 



The Birches have distinguishing characteristics in the details 

 of buds, leaves, stems and texture of the bark of trunk and branches. 

 The buds form early and are full grown by midsummer, all are 

 lateral; no terminal bud is formed. The wood of all the species 

 is close-grained with satiny texture and capable of taking a fine 

 polish. 



The leaves of the different species vary but little. All are alter- 

 nate doubly serrate, feather-veined, petiolate, and stipulate. 

 Apparently they often appear in pairs but these pairs are really 

 borne on spur-like, two-leaved lateral branches. The flowers are 

 monoecious, opening with or before the leaves and are borne in 

 three-flowered clusters in the axils of the scales of drooping or 

 erect aments. Staminate aments are pendulous, clustered or 

 solitary in the axils of the last leaves of the branch of the year 

 or near the ends of the short lateral branches of the year. They 

 form in early autumn and remain rigid during the winter. The 

 scales of the staminate aments when mature are broadly ovate, 

 rounded, yellow or orange color below the middle and dark chest- 

 nut brown at apex. Each scale bears two bractlets and three 



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