CHERRY BIRCH, SWEET BIRCH; BLACK BIRCH (Betula lenta, Linn.). 50 to SO feet. Symmetrical, round-headed tree, with aromatic leaves and bark, slender, graceful drooping branches. Bark brown, furrowed, and broken into irregular plates, coated with remnants of the silky epidermis, with its horizontal slits, like the bark on the smooth limbs. Inner bark sweet, spicy. Wood reddish brown, heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, used for furniture, in shipbuilding, and for fuel. Sap made into
beer. Leaves ovate, Q to 6 inches long, doubly serrate, acute, thin, dark, dull green above, yellow-green beneath, hairy on veins and petiole; yellow in autumn. Flowers similar to those of preceding species. Fruit, ripe in June, erect, smooth, oblong cones, with 3-lobed bracts and winged nutlets. Dist.: Newfoundland to western Ontario; south to Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Kansas. Common forest tree in the North.