246 
HABITS AND LATIN NAMES OF BRITISH PLANTS. 
The Rev. Hugh Davies describes the largest Birch he has seen as growing on a 
farm called Llwyn On, in the parish of Llanedwen, Anglesey. Mr. Winch 
states, that on the margins of the Cumberland and Westmoreland lakes, trees of 
this kind may be observed equalling in size and beauty those of Norway and 
Sweden, but are not found on the higher mountains. The beautiful laminae of 
the silken bark were used by the ancients as a papyrus for waiting tablets, before 
the invention of paper; and, according to Pltny and Plutarch, the works- 
composed by Numa were discovered in the tomb in a legible state, four hundred 
years after his interment. If a hole be bored into the tree when the sap rises 
in the Spring, a sweet liquor distils from it, which, properly fermented, with the 
addition of sugar, makes a pleasant wine. This process is performed in March, 
and four or five punctures may be made in a large tree, which has been ascer¬ 
tained to yield nearly its own weight of sap, and that without material injury. 
When the weather changes from warm to cold, Birch-trees cease to bleed, and 
on returning warmth begin again. In Northumberland, fishermen put the 
bituminous bark into a cleft stick, and lighting it, use it for fishing in the night, 
and spear the fish attracted by the light. The portable canoes of the North- 
American Indians are commonly constructed with this material, and on the 
banks of the lakes of the North of Europe are produced those enormous Birch 
trees, the bark of a single one of which is sufficient to form a large canoe. 
Throughout Europe the same name, with little variation, is bestowed on this 
tree; and that derived from Birka or Birke, in reference to the pre-eminent 
beauty and utility of its bark. The economical uses of the different parts of this 
tree are almost endless, and to the inhabitants of the Northern climes it is 
invaluable. 
Betula nana , Dwarf Birch.— Linnaeus observes that those plants which chiefly 
grow upon mountains, are rarely found anywhere else but in marshes : probably 
because the clouds resting upon the tops of the mountains keep the air in a moist 
state, as do fogs, the clouds of the lower atmosphere, in meadows and marshes. 
The leaves dye a finer yellow than that yielded by B. alba. It affords the 
humble Laplander in the Summer, when he lives on the mountains, fuel for the 
fires which he is obliged constantly to keep in his hut to defend him from the 
Gnats; and, covered with the skin of the Rein-deer, it forms his bed. The 
harness for Horses in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland is made of the 
twisted twigs of Birch. 
