838 ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 
beat ; from the fasces of the Roman lictors, which were always made of birch rods, being used to 
drive back the people. Pliny derives the name from bitumen. 
Gen. Char., §c. Barren flowers. Catkins cylindrical, lax, imbricated all 
round with ternate concave scales the middle one largest, ovate. Corolla 
none. Filaments 10 to 12, shorter than the middle scale, to which they 
are attached. Anthers roundish, 2-lobed.— Fertile flowers. Catkins similar 
but more dense; scales horizontal, peltate, dilated outwards, 3-lobed, 3- 
flowered. Corolla none. Germen compressed. Styles 2. Stigma simple. 
Nut oblong, deciduous, winged at each side. (G. Don.) 
Leaves simple, alternate, stipulate, deciduous; serrated or entire. Flowers 
whitish, in pendulous catkins. — Trees or shrubs, deciduous, with round 
slender branches, and the bark in most species in thin membranous layers. 
Natives of Europe, Asia, and North America. 
The species are generally found in mountainous rocky situations in the middle 
of Europe ; but they grow wild in plains and peaty soils in the northern regions, 
The common birch is one of the hardiest of known trees ; and there are only 
one or two other species of ligneous plants which approach so near to the 
North Pole. They all ripen seeds in the climate of London ; and are all of the 
easiest culture in any ordinary soil ; but, being hair-rooted, they do not grow so 
well in very strong clays ; nor do plants of this genus, when raised from layers 
or cuttings, grow so freely as in the case of most. other genera. The leaves 
of the birch having little succulency, and being astringent and aromatic, are 
very rarely subject to the attacks of insects. The wood of all the species is 
much less durable than the bark. The leaves of most of the species die off of 
arich yellow, and some of them of a deep red or scarlet. 
Leaves small. Natives chiefly of Europe. 
* 1. B.a‘tea L. The white, or common, Birch. 
Identification, Lin. Sp. P1., 1393.; Engl. Fl, 4. p. 153. ; Hook. Br. Fl., 3d ed., p. 411. 
Si ube Ehrh. Arb. 67.; Betula Raii Syn. 445.; B. etnénsis Rafi. ; Bouleau 
“commun, Fr.; gemeine Birke, Ger. ; Bedollo, Ital. 
Engravings. Eng. Bot., t. 2198, ; and our fig. 1528. 
Spec. Char., §c. Leaves ovate, acute, somewhat deltoid, unequally serrated, 
nearly glabrous. (Smith.) A deciduous tree. Europe, more especially 
in the colder regions ; a diminutive shrub in the extreme north, but a 
tree from 50 ft. to 60 ft. high in the middle regions. Flowers whitish; in 
Lapland, in May ; and in the Apennines, and in England, in February and 
March. Fruit brown ; ripe in September and October. Decaying leaves 
rich yellow, scarlet, or red. 
Varieties. 
* B. a. 2 péndula Smith. B. pendula Roth 
Germ, i. p. 405. pt. 2. p. 476.; B. verrucosa 
Ehrh. Arb. 96.; B. péndulis virgulis Loes. 
Pruss.; the weeping Birch.—A well-known 
tree, distinct from the species in having the 
shoots more slender, smoother, and pendu- 
lous. (See the plate of the young’ ¥2 
tree in Arb, Brit., 1st edit., vol. 
vii.) 
¥ B. a. 3 pubéscens. B. pubéscens 
Ehrh, Beitr. vi. 98. (Our jig. 
1526.) — The leaves covered 
with white hairs. 
* B. a. 4 poéntica. B. péntica Lodd, 
Cat, ed. 1836. (Our fig. 1527.) 
—Leaves somewhat larger than 
in the species, and the plant of 7 
1526. Ba. pubéscens. more robust growth. 1527, B.a. pdntica. 
