26 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
that the trunk is scarcely hidden. The glossy, leathery leaves 
vary in shape from a triangular form to a pointed oval, their 
edges doubly toothed, and their footstalks long and slender. 
About April the hanging catkins of the Birch, which were in 
evidence in the previous autumn, have matured and become 
dark crimson ; the scales separate and expose the two stamens 
of each flower, which has a single sepal. The female flowers 
are in a short, more erect spike, which consists of overlapping 
scales {bracts), each containing two or three flowers. The 
flowers have neither petals nor sepals, each consisting merely 
of an ovary with two slender styles. After fertilization the 
female spike has developed into a little oblong cone. The 
minute nuts have a pair of delicate wings to each, and as they 
are set free from the cones they flutter on the breeze like a 
swarm of small flies. The moss that usually covers the ground 
beneath the Birch will be found in October to be thickly speckled 
with these fruits, which are something more than seeds, as they 
are commonly termed ; they are really analogous to the acorn 
— a nut within a thin shell. The tree sometimes begins to 
produce seed when only fifteen years old ; but, as a rule, it is 
ten years older before it bears, and thereafter it has a crop 
every year. 
It is strange how so striking and graceful a tree could have 
been so persistently ignored by the old school of landscape 
painters, when one remembers with what good effect modern 
artists have utilized it. In this connection we need not apolo- 
gize for quoting at length a description of the tree from the 
artist’s point of view, because it also gives attention to those 
points one would like the rambler to notice. Mr. P. G. Hamerton 
in his Sylvan Year, says — 
“ The stem ... of the Silver Birch is one of the masterpieces 
of Nature. Everything has been done to heighten its unrivalled 
brilliance. The horizontal peeling of the bark, making dark 
rings at irregular distances, the brown spots, the dark colour of 
