AMENTIFERZ. 183 
B. pendula of Roth, and when the leaves are deeply lobed, the B. 
laciniata of Wahlenberg. 
White Birch. 
French, Bouleau blanc. German, Gemeine Birke. 
This is certainly the most graceful of our forest trees, and occurs abundantly in 
the woods and thickets of Northern Britain. It thrives best on barren, rocky, and 
sandy soils, and seems to grow as Iuxuriantly on the poorest land as on the most 
fertile. It rises frequently to a height of thirty or forty feet, and in northern climates 
attains a larger size, becoming often two fect or more in diameter at the base of the 
trunk. The peculiar bark, very rugged on the lower part of the stem, at least in old 
trees, but smooth above, and separating in thin papery layers of silver whiteness, 
distinguish it from all other British trees, while its light small foliage and slender 
branches render it one of the most elegant of them. The barren catkins are long 
and slender, the fertile ones short and thicker; both are produced on the same 
tree. 
The birch was known to the Greeks and to the Romans. According to Pliny and 
Plutarch, the celebrated books which Numa Pompilius composed 700 years before 
Christ, and which were buried with him on Mount Janiculum, were written on 
the bark of the birch tree. In the early days of Rome the lictors had their 
fasces made of birch branches, which they carried before the magistrates to 
clear the way, beating the people back with the boughs. The birch was formerly 
used for decorating houses during Rogation week, in the same manner as holly at 
Christmas. Gerard says, the branches of the birch “serve well to the decking of 
houses and banquetting roomes for places of pleasure, and beautifying the streetes in 
the Crosse or Gang week, and such like.’’ Phillips tells us that the Cross or Gang 
week was the same as Rogation week, and so-called from the crowds or gangs of 
penitents going in that week to confession before Whitsuntide. It was called Cross 
week from the crosses carried before the priests in the procession on Ascension Day ; 
and Rogation week, from the Latin verb rogo, to ask or pray. Coles, writing in 1657, 
observes that as he “rid through Little Brickhill in Buckinghamshire, every sign 
poste in the towne was bedecked with green birch.” Mr. Loudon tells us that he 
observed the same custom in Poland at the same season; where also large boughs 
are fixed in the ground, against each side of the doors of the houses.” The birch 
has been used as an instrument of correction at schools from the earliest ages. 
“ Anciently,” says Evelyn, “birch cudgels were used by the lictors, as now the 
gentler rods by our tyrannical pedagogues for lighter faults.” Gerard observes that 
in his time “ schoolmasters and parents do terrifie their children with rods made of 
birch.” The use of these rods, however, has now almost passed away both in schools 
and families, and it is only in some few of the more ancient institutions which refuse 
to accept modern enlightenment on many subjects that the birch rod is superseded by 
the cane for the same purpose. Birch brooms have a reputation still, and the young 
shoots are extensively used in making besoms of all sorts. In Lapland and Kamt- 
schatka the huts are constructed with birch branches covered with turf, and fagots 
of the spray with the leaves on, in cases of the reindeer skin, serve for seats during 
the day, and beds at night. 
In the Highlands of Scotland birch may be said to be the universal wood. “The 
Highlanders make everything of it ; they build their houses of birch, make their beds, 
chairs, tables, dishes, and spoons of it; construct their mills of it; make their carts, 
