62 
BLACK BIRCIL 
The barren flowers of the Black Birch are disposed in flexible aments 
about 4 inches long. The fertile aments which are commonly situated at 
the extremity of the young branches, are 10 or 12 lines long, and 5 or 6 
lines in diameter, straight, cylindrical, and nearly sessile at the season of 
the maturity of the seed, which is about the first of November. 
The bark, upon the trunk of trees less than eight inches in diameter, is 
smooth, grayish, and perfectly similar in its color and organisation to that 
ftf the Cherry Tree. On old trees, the epidermis detaches itself trans- 
versely, at intervals, in hard, ligneous plates, 6 or 8 inches broad. 
The wood of the Black Birch, when freshly cut, is of a rosy hue, which 
deepens by exposure to the light. Its grain is fine and close, whence it is 
susceptible of a brilliant polish ; it possesses also a considerable share of 
strength. The union of these properties renders it superior to the other 
species of American Birch, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 
York, it is next in esteem to the Wild Cherry Tree, among cabinet-makers 
in the country. Tables and bedsteads of this wood, when carefully pre- 
served, acquire with time the appearance of Mahogany, hence it is em- 
ployed in Boston for the frames of arm-chairs and of sofas ; coach-makers 
also use it for the frames of their panels. Shoe lasts are made of Black 
Birch, but they are less esteemed than those of Beech. Such are the 
principal uses of this wood, from which it may easily be gathered to what 
subsidiary purposes it is applicable. 
The vegetation of the Black Birch is beautiful, and, in a congenial soil, 
its growth is rqpid. A proof of this last assertion is found in the Annals 
of the Arts, where a stock of this species is reported to have attained the 
height of 45 feet and 8 inches in nineteen years. 
These considerations should induce the Americans to bestow great care 
on the preservation of the Black Birch, and the inhabitants of the old 
World to introduce it into their forests. The attempts upon a great scale 
would be more successful in the North of France, in England and in Ger- 
many, on account of the greater humidity of the climate, than in more 
southern countries. 
I shall terminate this description of one of my favourite trees, by recom- 
mending it to the lovers of foreign vegetables, as eminently adapted, by 
the beauty of its foliage and by the agreeable odor of its flowers, to figure 
in their parks and gardens. 
PLATE LXXIV. 
A branch with leaves and fertile aments of the natural size. Fig. 1 , A seed. 
Fig. 2, A scale which covers the seed. 
[A tree of this species in Massachusetts measured in 1839, 9 feet 5 
inches in girth, at three feet from the ground.] 
