THE BIRCHES AND HORNBEAMS 



as the black birch. The catkins are larger round 

 than those of the black birch. 



This is in every way a worthy sister tree of 

 the black birch, and the rich yellow of the 

 trunk, but partially revealed through the gray, 

 shaggy, outer layers of the bark, is quite as 

 beautiful as the rich red-browns of the black 

 birch bark. Thoreau felt the charm of yel- 

 low birches. In his journal, Jan. 4, 1853, 

 he says: "To what I will call Yellow Birch 

 Swamp, E. Hubbard's in the north part of the 

 town, . . . west of the Hunts' pasture. There 

 are more of these trees in it than anywhere else 

 in the town that I know. How pleasing to 

 stand near a new or rare tree; and few are so 

 handsome as this: singularly allied to the black 

 birch in its sweet checkerberry scent and its 

 form, and to the canoe birch in its peeling or 

 fringed and tasselled bark. The top is brush- 

 like, as in the black birch. The bark an ex- 

 quisite . . . delicate gold color, curled off partly 

 from the trunk with vertical clear or smooth 

 spaces, as if a plane had been passed up the 

 tree. The sight of these trees affects me more 

 than California gold. I measured one five and 

 two-twelfths feet in circumference at six feet from 

 the ground. We have the silver and the golden 

 birch. This is like a fair flaxen-haired sister of 

 65 



