TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



bright red-brown; often forming clumps of several stems. Bark thin, white tinged with 

 rose, lustrous, not readily separable into layers, the inner bark light orange color. 



Distribution. Moist slopes, Stratton and Windham, Windham County, Vermont, at alti- 

 tudes of about 1800 (W. H. Blanckard), Haystack Mountain, Aroostook County, Maine 

 (M. L. Fernald)', the American representative of the European Betula pendula Roth., and 

 probably widely distributed over the hills of northern New England and eastern Canada. 

 Perhaps with its variety best considered a natural hybrid between B. papyrifera and B. 

 populifolia. 



Apparently passing into a form with larger leaves often rounded and truncate at the 

 broad base, 3'-3|' long and 2' wide, stouter staminate aments, and strobiles frequently 

 l' long and |' thick (var. Blanchardii Sarg. fig. 198 A). This under favorable conditions 

 is a tree 60-70 high, with a trunk 18' in diameter; common with Betula coerulea at Wind- 

 ham and Stratton, Vermont (W. H. Blanchard), and on a hill near the coast in Washington 

 County, Maine (M. L. Fernald). 



6. Betula papyrifera Marsh. Canoe Birch. Paper Birch. 



Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate with a short broad point, coarsely usually doubly and 

 often very irregularly serrate except at the rounded abruptly cuneate or gradually nar- 

 rowed base, bright green, glandular-resinous, pubescent and clothed below on the midrib 

 and primary veins and on the petioles with long white hairs when they unfold, at maturity 

 thick and firm, dull dark green and glandless or rarely glandular on the upper surface, light 

 yellow-green and glabrous or puberulous, with small tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the 

 primary veins and covered with many black glands on the lower surface, 2'-3' long, l^'-fc 7 

 wide, with a slender yellow midrib marked, like the remote primary veins, with minute 



Fig. 199 



black glands, turning light clear yellow in the auutmn; petioles stout, yellow, glandular, 

 glabrous or pubescent, |'-f long; stipules ovate, acute, ciliate on the margins with pale 

 hairs, light green. Flowers: staminate aments clustered during the winter, f'-l?' long, 

 about i' thick, with ovate, acute scales light brown below the middle, dark red-brown 

 above it, becoming 3'-4' long, and about ' thick; pistillate aments I'-lf ' long, about T V 

 thick, with light green lanceolate scales long-pointed and acute or rounded at apex; styles 

 bright red. Fruit: strobiles cylindric, glabrous, about 1|' long and %' thick, hanging on 

 slender stalks, their scales very rarely entire (var. elobata Sarg.); nut ellipsoidal, about 

 r \' long, much narrower than its thin wing. 



A tree, usually 60-70 tall, with a trunk 2-3 in diameter, becoming in old age, or 

 when crowded by other trees, branchless below and supporting a narrow open head of 





