Betula 987 



birch near the ground, grows at Bicton, and measured, in 1906, 75 feet by 7 feet 

 2 inches (Plate 259). A large tree is growing at Woburn, near the lake on the 

 right of the main entrance from the village. It is on its own roots, and has bark 

 of a brownish-grey colour, quite unlike the trees at White Knights and Bicton. 

 At Arley,^ a tree measured 41 feet by 4 feet in 1905. There is also an old and 

 sickly tree at Boynton, in Yorkshire, and a young and healthy one on its own roots, 

 about 40 feet high, at Tortworth, 



In Scotland and Ireland we have failed to find a single specimen of any size. 



The handsomest specimen that I have seen in Europe is at the nursery of 

 Simon-Louis freres at Metz, where on a deep rich loam it has attained 70 feet high 

 by 6 feet 4 inches in girth, and has a fine silvery bark, more beautiful than any that 

 I know in England. (H. J. E.) 



BETULA POPULIFOLIA, Grey Birch 



Betula populifolia, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 19 (1785); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1707 (1838); 



Sargent, Silva N. Amer. ix. 55, t. 450 (1896), and Trees N. Amer. 200 (1905); Winkler, 



BetulacecB, 79 (1904). 

 Betula excelsa canadensis, Wangenheim, Nordam. Holz. 86 (1787). 

 Betula acuminata, Ehrhart, Beit. Naturk. vi. 98 (1791). 

 Betula cuspidata, Schrader, ex Regel, in DC. Frod. xvi. 2, p. 164 (1868). 

 Betula alba, Linnaeus, yzx. populifolia, Spach, in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, xv. 187 (1841). 

 Betula alba, Linnaeus, sub-species /(T^a/z/^/za, Regel, in Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. xxxviii. 399 (1865). 



A tree, attaining in America 30 or 40 feet in height and 18 inches in diameter. 

 Bark similar to that of B. verrucosa, but greyish in colour. Young branchlets 

 glabrous, covered with reddish-brown glands, which persist and roughen the shoot 

 in the second year. Leaves (Plate 269, Fig. 4), 2\ to 3 inches long, \\ to 2 inches 

 wide, deltoid ; broadly cuneate or truncate at the base ; prolonged into a long 

 caudate -acuminate apex ; margin lobulate, irregularly serrate ; nerves five or six 

 pairs ; both surfaces shining, glabrous, covered with minute brown glands ; petiole 

 reddish, long, slender, glandular, glabrous. 



Fruiting-catkins (Plate 269, Fig. 4), cylindrical, f inch long, \ inch in diameter, 

 pendent or spreading on slender stalks ; scales pubescent and ciliate, with short 

 triangular middle lobe and recurved broad lateral lobes ; wings broader than the 

 narrow nutlet. 



This species is closely allied ^ to B. verrucosa ; but it is a smaller tree, 

 strikingly different in the colour of the bark, and is readily distinguished by the 

 shape of the leaf, the apex of which is very prolonged, and by the pubescent scales 

 of the fruiting-catkins. 



Veirieties laciniata and pendula mentioned by Loudon are not known now in 



' Hortus ArUyensis, 45 (1907). 

 ' Sargent, in Garden and Forest, ii. 484 (1889), points out the differences between these two species. 



