THE CANOE BIECH. -307 



in this country, though considered identical with the White 

 Birch of Europe, is greatly inferior to it ia size. In Amer- 

 ica, however, the white canoe birch, a very similar species, 

 eq^ually surpasses the European White Birch. It se^ms as 

 if the thrifty habit of the canoe >birch had some mysterious 

 influence ia dwarfing the other species in America. 



THE CANOE BIRCH. 



Some of the most beautiful assemblages of wood in 

 high latitudes on this continent consist of the Canoe 

 Birch. It is seen in Massachusetts and Connecticut 

 only in occasional groups; but in the States of Maine 

 and New Hampshire, on the sandy river-banks and 

 diluvial plains, it forms woods of great extent and un- 

 rivalled beauty. With their tall shafts resembling pil- 

 lars of polished marble, supporting a canopy of bright 

 green foliage, they form one of the picturesque attractions 

 of a Northern tour. Nature indicates the native habitat 

 of this noble tree by causing its exterior to display the 

 whiteness of snow. The foliage of the Canoe Birch is of 

 a very bright green, and exceeds that of all the family 

 in the depth of its golden tints in autumn. We never 

 see in the foliage of the birches any of that glaucous or 

 pea-green color so common in the maples. The leaves 

 of the Canoe Birch deviate from the ovate form and ap- 

 proach the heart shape. Its bark is almost purely white, 

 and attracts the attention of every visitor of the woods. 

 The clean white shafts of a Canoe Birch wood, towering 

 upward among the other trees of the forest, present a 

 scene with which nothing else is comparable. The uses 

 which have been made of the bark of this tree are so 

 numerous and so familiar to all that it would be idle to 

 enumerate them. Indeed, it would be difficult to estimate 

 its importance to the aboriginal inhabitants of America. 



