THE SOFTWOODS 179 



(Betuta alba) is often found growing along with 

 it in marshy land, though less frequently by the 

 sides of streams meandering through pasture 

 lands, where willow, poplar, and hazel are its 

 chief associates. The birch is the most graceful 

 of all our forest trees. Whether as a tree of 

 the mountain, rising up from the heather-clad 

 hillside, where its silvery bark forms a beautiful 

 contrast to the dark-coloured heather, while its 

 light-green delicate foliage stands out clear 

 against the blue sky, or hanging pendulously 

 over the margin of a lake or the bank of some 

 murmuring brook, there are few objects in the 

 vegetable world which can compare with the 

 birch in the grace and delicacy of its beauty, 

 and perhaps none which can surpass it in this 

 particular regard. Small wonder, then, that it 

 has been so often sung by the poets and painted 

 by the artists of Britain. Its gracefulness is the 

 leading feature in M'Whirter's * Three Graces* 

 and * The Lady of the Lake.' The same 

 charm called forth Coleridge's description of it 

 as 



* most beautiful 

 Of forest trees the Lady of the Woods.' 



