Part 14

Betula lenta

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Although the bark is white and might be confounded with that of the canoe birch at first sight, the trees can easily be told apart. The gray birch has a close-fitting bark which is dirty white in color, with triangular black blotches under the branches, it is exceedingly chalky to the touch and never peels off as it grows old, while the bark of the canoe birch peels off in thin lateral strips, is clear white in color, and seldom shows any dark blotches on the trunk, The bark of the recent shoots of the gray birch is rough to the touch, and that of the canoe birch is smooth and sticky where the buds join the stem.

Its wood is soft, light, and neither strong nor durable. It is used for wood pulp, shoe pegs, spools, barrels, and for fuel.

The specific name, populifolia (poplar-leaved), refers to the leaves which quiver in the wind and show light under surfaces like the aspens. The gray birch is found throughout the Northeastern States.

Betula lenta]

A tall, round-headed tree. The branches twist in different directions, but are pendulous and graceful. The young shoots are brown, dotted with white, and smooth. The bark is smooth, dark brown, and resembles that of the garden cherry. The buds are conical and pointed. The twigs have an aromatic taste. Alternate leaf-scars.

Few trees deserve greater appreciation than the black birch and few receive as little from people in general. It is always beautiful, but in winter when the smooth golden brown stems are bare and the sun strikes it squarely, it glows to the tip of the smallest branch with a wealth of radiant, living color.

The black birch is easily distinguished by the dark color of its bark, which is smooth on young trees and cracks into rough square plates on old trees, but which never peels off in strips. Its gray stems have a sweet, spicy taste, which is also a means of identifying the tree.

The wood is heavy, strong, and hard, and its surface after being polished is like satin. It is much sought after for furniture and is excellent for fuel. An oil made from the wood is used medicinally and as a flavoring extract, and a sweet beer is made by fermenting the sugary sap.

The specific name, lenta (pliant), refers to the flexible stems and branches of this tree. The black birch is found in rich woods throughout the Northeastern States.

Betula lutea]

A beautiful straight tree, 50 to 90 feet high. Distinguished from the black birch by its yellowish or silver-gray bark, which, unlike the brown bark of the black birch rolls back and peels off in thin, filmy strips from the trunk. The bud scales overlap each other. Alternate leaf-scars. Delicate twigs with an aromatic taste, not as sweet as the black birch. The catkins are larger round than those of the black birch.

Betula lutea

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This is in every way a worthy sister tree of the black birch, and the rich yellow of the trunk, but partially revealed through the gray, shaggy, outer layers of the bark, is quite as beautiful as the rich red-browns of the black birch bark. Thoreau felt the charm of yellow birches. In his journal, Jan. 4, 1853, he says: “To what I will call Yellow Birch Swamp, E. Hubbard’s in the north part of the town, ... west of the Hunts’ pasture. There are more of these trees in it than anywhere else in the town that I know. How pleasing to stand near a new or rare tree; and few are so handsome as this: singularly allied to the black birch in its sweet checkerberry scent and its form, and to the canoe birch in its peeling or fringed and tasselled bark. The top is brush-like, as in the black birch. The bark an exquisite ... delicate gold color, curled off partly from the trunk with vertical clear or smooth spaces, as if a plane had been passed up the tree. The sight of these trees affects me more than California gold. I measured one five and two-twelfths feet in circumference at six feet from the ground. We have the silver and the golden birch. This is like a fair flaxen-haired sister of the dark complexioned black birch, with golden ringlets. How lustily it takes hold of the swampy soil and braces itself. In the twilight I went through the swamps, and the yellow birches sent forth a yellow gleam which each time made my heart beat faster. Sometimes I was in doubt about a birch whose vest was buttoned, smooth and dark, till I came nearer and saw the yellow gleaming through, or where a button was off.”

The yellow birch is one of the most valuable timber trees of the North. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and is used for making furniture, the hubs of wheels, and boxes. Few hard woods of a light color make as attractive flooring as polished yellow birch.

The specific name, lutea (yellow), refers to the color of the wood and bark of the trunk. The yellow birch is found throughout the Northeastern States.

Betula nigra]

A medium-sized tree found on the edges of streams. Long, graceful, sweeping upper limbs, with small, pendulous lower branches. The bark is reddish, very shaggy and loose, flaking off and rolling back in thin strips. Alternate leaf-scars. Twigs reddish brown and pliant.

Betula nigra

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The red birch is easily distinguished from all the other birches by its reddish, loosely peeling bark, which gives the trunk an unkempt, shaggy, and torn appearance. The outer bark separates into flakes which are loose at one end and adhere to the trunk at the other, and these projecting strips look like a fringe. The lower branches often bend down towards the ground in a straggling, irregular fashion, while the upper branches are free and sweeping. It should not be inferred from this description that the red birch is lacking in beauty, for it is a most attractive tree. Its general outline is picturesque, and the soft red color of the peeling epidermis of the bark in the upper branches has a very pleasing effect. The red birch is the only semi-aquatic species among the birches, and its drooping branches hanging over the water add much to the beauty of our streams and rivers.

Its wood is light but strong, and is used for furniture, wooden ware, and yokes.

The specific name, nigra (black), was given it by Linnæus, the celebrated Swedish botanist,—it seems to have no particular significance.

The red birch is found growing on the banks of the Nashua and Merrimac Rivers and beside smaller streams in Massachusetts, but it grows more frequently along river banks in the South than in the North.

A small shrub (Betula pumila), the dwarf birch, found in rocky pastures in Western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and in the South and West, completes the list of our six native birches.

Betula alba]