580 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



smallest. They are provided with two wings and are good flyers. 

 Manufacturers of flooring and interior finish in Washington reported the 

 use of 315,000 feet of this birch in 1911. That was the only use found for 

 it in the only state where it grows. Information is meager as to the 

 probable quantity of this birch available. It has been reported in 

 Idaho, but exact information on the subject is lacking. 



MOUNTAIN BIRCH (Betula fontanalis) is a minor species concerning which there 

 has been much contention among botanists. It has finally been called mountain 

 birch because it grows on mountains, as high as 10,000 feet among the Sierra Nevadas 

 in California. It has many local names for a tree so small as to be almost a shrub 

 throughout most of its range: Black birch, sweet birch, cherry birch, water birch, 

 and canyon birch. Its bark is of the color of old copper; wood is light yellowish- 

 brown, with thick white sapwood ; trunks seldom exceed ten inches in diameter and 

 thirty feet high; range extends from northern British Columbia to California, and 

 along the Rocky Mountains to Colorado and possibly further south. The uses of the 

 wood are few. 



