THE BIRCH. 
25 
of the German and Scandinavian family, and from the fact that 
the literature of these people was inscribed on tablets of Beech, 
our word book has the same origin. 
The Birch {Betula alba). 
“ The Lady of the Woods,” as Coleridge christened the Birch, 
is at once the most graceful, the hardiest, and the most ubiqui- 
tous of our forest trees. It grows throughout the length and 
breadth of our islands, and seems happy alike on a London 
common, in a suburban garden, or far up in the Scottish high- 
lands (2500 feet). It penetrates farther north than any other 
tree, and its presence is a great boon to the natives of Lapland. 
It will grow where it is subjected to great heat, as well as where 
it must endure extreme cold, with its slender roots exploring 
the beds of peat, the rich humus of the old wood, or the raw 
soil of the mountain-side, where it has to cling to rocks and a 
few mosses. Given plenty of light, and it seems to care for 
little else. Though a mere shrub in the far north, with us the 
Birch has a trunk sometimes as tall as eighty, but more fre- 
quently fifty feet, and a girth of from twm to three feet. In its 
first decade it increases in height at the rate of a foot and a 
half or two feet in a year ; but, of course, there is little breadth 
to be built up at the same time. It reaches maturity in half a 
century, and before the other half is reached the Birch will have 
passed away. 
The bark of the Birch is more enduring than its timber, 
which may be partly due to its habit of casting off the outer 
layer in shreds, like fine tissue-paper, from time to time. The 
greater part of the bark is silvery white, which adds to the 
apparent slenderness of the tree, and makes it conspicuous from 
a long distance ; for the attenuated and drooping branches, 
dressed in small and loosely hung leaves, sway so constantly 
