DECIDUOUS TREES. 
381 
besides its most important use for canoes, as already mentioned. 
The leaves, borne on petioles four or five lines long, are of a 
middling size, oval, unequally denticulated, smooth, and of a dark- 
green color.” Fig. 120 represents a young tree of this species. 
“The White Birch, B. populifolia , is a tree of much smaller 
size, generally from twenty to thirty-five feet in height. It is found 
in New York and the other middle States, as well as at the north. 
The trunk, like the foregoing, is covered with silvery bark; the 
branches are slender, and generally drooping when the tree attains 
considerable size. The leaves are smooth on both surfaces, heart- 
shaped at the base, very acuminate, and doubly and irregularly 
toothed. The petioles are slightly twisted, and the leaves are 
almost as tremulous as those of the aspen. It is a beautiful small 
tree for ornamental planting.” 
“The Common Black or Sweet Birch. B. lenta .—This is 
the sort most generally known by the name of the birch, and is 
widely diffused over the middle and southern States. In color and 
appearance the bark much resembles that of the cherry tree: on 
old trees, at the close of winter, it is frequently detached in trans¬ 
verse portions, in the form of hard ligneous plates, six or eight 
inches broad. The leaves, for a fortnight after their appearance, 
are covered with a thick silvery down which disappears soon after. 
They are about two inches long, serrate, heart-shaped at the base, 
acuminate at the summit, and of a pleasing tint and fine texture.” 
“The Yellow Birch, B. lutea , grows most plentifully in Nova 
Scotia, Maine, and New Brunswick, on cool rich soils, where it is a 
tree of the largest size. It is remarkable for the color and arrange¬ 
ment of its outer bark, which is of a brilliant golden-yellow, and is 
frequently seen divided into fine strips rolled backward at the 
ends, but attached in the middle. The leaves are about three and 
a half inches long, two and a half broad, ovate, acuminate, and 
bordered with sharp irregular teeth. It is a beautiful tree, with a 
trunk of nearly uniform diameter, straight and destitute of branches 
for thirty or forty feet.” 
