THE BIRCHES AND HORNBEAMS 



" Where weeps the birch with silver bark 

 And long dishevelled hair." 



From an artistic point of view much has been 

 said about these trees. In the " Sylvan Year," 

 Philip Gilbert Hamerton calls the stem of the 

 birch "one of the masterpieces of Nature." 

 " Everything, " he says, "has been done to 

 heighten its unrivalled brilliance. The hori- 

 zontal peeling of the bark, making dark rings 

 at irregular distances, the brown spots, the dark 

 color of the small twigs, the rough texture near 

 the ground, and the exquisite silky smoothness 

 of the tight white bands above, offer exactly 

 that variety of contrast which makes us feel 

 a rare quality like that smooth whiteness as 

 strongly as we are capable of feeling it. And 

 amongst the common effects to be seen in all 

 northern countries, one of the most brilliant 

 is the opposition of birch trunks in sunshine 

 against the deep blue or purple of a mountain 

 distance in shadow." 



Miss Jekyll, in "Wood and Garden," says 

 that the tints of the stem give a precious lesson 

 in color. "The white of the bark," she says, 

 "is here silvery white and there milk white, 

 and sometimes shows the faintest tinge of rosy 

 flush. Where the bark has not yet peeled off, 

 the stem is clouded and banded with delicate 

 69 



