210 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
Sp. 4. Tue Canoz Bircu. B. papyracea. Aiton. 
The leaves and strobile are figured in Michaux, Sylva, II, pl. 69; the tree, 
leaves andaments in Loudon, Arboretum, VII, Plate 236. 
The paper birch is a northern tree, being found as far north 
as latitude 65°. It grows naturally on river banks and in 
moist, deep soil, flourishing in almost any situation, but never 
attaining a very large size in Massachusetts. Itisa picturesque 
tree; the points of light from its white trunk producing a. bril- 
liant effect in the midst of its soft but glittering foliage, hanging, 
as we often see it, over some mountain stream, or sweeping up 
with a graceful curve from the side of its steep bank. 
The recent shoots are of a reddish or purplish olive green, 
gradually deepening, in successive years, into a dark copper 
bronze, conspicuously dotted with grayish brown dots, and con- 
trasting strikingly with the white trunk. The larger branches 
and upper part of the trunk, and portions of the lower, have 
often a red tinge, whence the tree has been sometimes mistaken 
for the red birch, which is not found quite so far north. The 
smooth white bark of the trunk may be easily separated into 
thin horizontal layers, of an orange color within. The lenti- 
cellar dots of the twigs become, on the larger trunks, horizontal 
stripes of a yellowish brick or orange color, two or three inches 
long, and a line wide. 
The leaves are alternate on the growing branches, and in 
pairs below, on tapering footstalks, of one quarter or one third of 
their length. They are from two to four inches long, and some- 
times more than two wide, often inequilateral, broad, oblong- 
egg-shaped, inclining to heater-shaped, tapering to a point, ir- 
regularly, doubly and coarsely, but sharply serrate; smooth 
above, roughly reticulated beneath; dotted above and beneath, 
when young, with resinous, silvery dots, and downy about the 
axils of the veins beneath. ‘They resemble the leaves of the 
common gray birch, but are broader towards the extremity. 
The male flowers are in pendulous catkins, three or four 
inches long, with the scales very slightly fringed. The fertile 
catkins are longer than in the other birches, and have their 
