Yellow Birch, Grey Birch (Betula lutea, Michx.)—Medium sized tree, 5o to 75 feet, rarely loo feet high, with broad, round top with slender, drooping branchlets ending in fine, leafy spray. Bark aromatic, bitter, dark grey, rough, with deep, irregular furrows, and thick plates; younger stems silvery yellow, peeling horizontally in ribbons; remnants of this lustrous bark seen on plates of old trunks; twigs pubescent the first season. Wood reddish brown, pale, heavy, hard, strong, close grained, satiny. Buds pointed, inch long, brown, shiny. Leaves ovate, 3 to 4 inches long, sharply and doubly serrate, pointed, oblique at base; veins conspicuous, hairy beneath, midrib stout; petiole short, hairy; colour dull dark green, with yellow-green lining; autumn, pale yellow. Flowers before leaves in April; staminate catkins, 3 to 4 inches long, brown above, yellow below the middle; pistillate catkins inch long, reddish green, hairy. Fruits : cones oblong or ovoid, stout, t inch long, erect, scales 3-lobed, narrow, tapering, hairy; nut oval, with narrow wings. Preferred habitat, rich, moist uplands. Distribution, Newfoundland south to Delaware, North Carolina and Tennessee; west to Minnesota. Uses: A desirable ornamental tree, but rarely planted. Wood valuable for imple ments, furniture, wheel hubs, button moulds, boxes, and for fuel.
The bark again gives the name to a large birch that grows here and there in the forests of the Northern States. The fringed and tattered outer bark, dingy grey with pearly lustre, and showing gleams of gold at every rent, is unlike the other birches. The twigs are aromatic, but not to compare with the black birch. In grace and lustiness the two trees are well matched. The yellow birch leads in size, of its catkins, fruiting cones, and the tree itself. The leaves are not larger, but they are more distinctly toothed, the double serrations being regular and clear cut.
The yellow birch is one of the best of timber trees. The frames of sledges are made of it in the North. An infinite number of small articles employ it. The burs make good mallets; the fantastic arching roots sometimes show curly grain. Often a great yellow birch, shaggy with age, stands long in the woods after it is dead. Such a specimen was lighted on a dark night by a camping party. The flames swept the trunk in a flash, turning the whole tree into a magnificent pillar of fire which consumed it utterly before it had time to fall! So a veracious camper declared. The safety and morals of such a bonfire were evidently not considered by the party. Doubtless this is a common tempta tion to camping parties in the north woods. It might be quite justifiable if the fire could always be controlled. But here, as
elsewhere, playing with fire is dangerous business, and responsible and law-abiding citizens will abstain from it.
Red Birch, River Birch (Betula nigra, Linn.)—Tree 6o to 90 feet high, numerous pendulous branches forming round head; trunk usually dividing into a few main limbs which spread slightly. Bark dark reddish brown, furrowed, with scaly surface; on branches cinnamon red to silvery, curling back in sheets, fringed with tatters throughout. Lenticels prominent. Wood light brown, strong, close grained. Buds chestnut brown, shining, a inch long, ovate. Leaves alternate, i to 3 inches long, oval, pointed, twice saw toothed, thin, tough, shining dark green above, pale yellow green beneath; dull yellow in autumn; petioles short, flattened, fuzzy, slim. Flowers before leaves, March or April; staminate catkins in threes, 2 to 3 inches long, yellow and brown mottled, pendulous; pistillate catkins I inch long, erect, green, fuzzy, stalked. Fruit ripe in June, erect, cylindrical cones, 1 to 2 inches long, bracts divisions narrow, spreading, central one longest; nut oval, with broad wings, hairy. Preferred habitat, along rivers, ponds and swamps inundated part of the year. Distribution, Massachusetts to Florida, west to Texas, north along Mississippi to Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, eastern Nebraska, and in Ohio. Uses: Desirable ornamental tree; planted in copses to hold stream banks from washing. Wood used for fuel, furniture, ox yokes, shoe lasts, shoes and small woodenwares. Branches make hoops for rice casks.
The red birch earns its name by its bark, which is reddish or chocolate coloured from root to twig. The tree is a tall, graceful fountain of leafy spray; the central stem breaks into two or three divergent limbs that support the pendulous horizontal branchlets. No birch loves the stream borders more ardently than this Southern member of the family. The lustrous leaves do not conceal the flying silken tatters of bark which cover the tree to its leafy twigs the year round. It is foolish to call this tree nigra, for it is not black but red, from top to bottom. It is at its best along the bayous of the lower Mississippi, where its roots and base of trunk are inundated for half the year.
The fruits of the red birch are ripe in June, and the wind, shaking the erect cones, scatters the seeds on the rich land from which the water has subsided. Here they germinate at once, and are rooted, vigorous little seedlings by the time the floods return, able to keep their heads above water, and to thrive like their parents, adding colour and grace of line and motion to the land scapes of many different regions.