Part 15

A tree from Europe, extensively cultivated in this country. White, chalky bark. Long, slender, down-sweeping branches. Small buds. Alternate leaf-scars.

The slender, drooping branches of the European white birch are so long and pliant that the slightest breeze sets them swaying in one direction from the trunk, like a shower of rain driven by the wind. The birch does not lose its pendulous grace in mere limp dejection, like most of the weeping varieties of trees that gardeners love to propagate, but it holds its head high and the slender branches droop down,—a striking contrast to the weeping willow and other lachrymose specimens of horticultural art.

There have been constant allusions to this tree in English literature. Perhaps the most descriptive is one of Sir Walter Scott’s which refers to the slender, pendulous boughs,—

Betula alba

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“Where weeps the birch with silver bark And long dishevelled hair.”

From an artistic point of view much has been said about these trees. In the “Sylvan Year,” Philip Gilbert Hamerton calls the stem of the birch “one of the masterpieces of Nature.” “Everything,” he says, “has been done to heighten its unrivalled brilliance. The horizontal peeling of the bark, making dark rings at irregular distances, the brown spots, the dark color of the small twigs, the rough texture near the ground, and the exquisite silky smoothness of the tight white bands above, offer exactly that variety of contrast which makes us feel a rare quality like that smooth whiteness as strongly as we are capable of feeling it. And amongst the common effects to be seen in all northern countries, one of the most brilliant is the opposition of birch trunks in sunshine against the deep blue or purple of a mountain distance in shadow.”

Miss Jekyll, in “Wood and Garden,” says that the tints of the stem give a precious lesson in color. “The white of the bark,” she says, “is here silvery white and there milk white, and sometimes shows the faintest tinge of rosy flush. Where the bark has not yet peeled off, the stem is clouded and banded with delicate gray and with the silver-green of lichen. For about two feet upward from the ground, in the case of young trees of about seven to nine inches in diameter, the bark is dark in color, and lies in thick and extremely rugged and upright ridges, contrasting strongly with the smooth white skin above. Where the two join, the smooth bark is parted in upright slashes, through which the dark rough bark seems to swell up, reminding one forcibly of some of the old fifteenth-century German costumes, where a dark velvet is arranged to rise in crumpled folds through slashings in white satin.”

The wood is used in Europe for fuel and for making furniture. It is rather curious to find that the birch has been celebrated as an instrument of chastisement since early Roman times. Gerard says that in his time “schoolmasters and parents do terrify their children with rods made of birch;” and Shenstone, in the “Schoolmistress,” has a pathetic little account of the fears of small boys as they watched the wind waving the branches of a birch tree growing by the schoolhouse,—

“For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew, But their limbs shuddered, and their pulse beat low; And, as they looked, they found their terror grew, And shaped it into rods and tingled at the view.”

Ostrya virginiana

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The European birch is found throughout the North of Europe, and grows in every kind of soil, both wet and dry,—the Earl of Haddington called it, with quaint humor, “an amphibious plant,” and after two hundred years this is still descriptive of its habits.

It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the specific name, alba, alludes to the color of the bark.

Ostrya virginiana]

A small, slender tree, 30 to 50 feet high. The bark is light, and scales off in thin flakes, and is seldom more than a quarter of an inch thick. Small, acute buds; alternate leaf-scars; delicate twigs. Small catkins, usually three together, pointing upwards. Hop-like fruit, often remaining on the tree through the winter.

There is but one native hop hornbeam in New England, and it is an extremely interesting little tree. It grows under other trees in the forest, and is easily overlooked, usually being mistaken for a young elm. Of all trees the hop hornbeam is the most retiring in its habits, and takes much the same place among trees that the hare does among animals, or the violet among flowers, living a secluded life in wild places, where the woods partially conceal its identity.

Its outline against the sky in winter is most delicate and pretty, the twigs are very slender, and are tipped with the three little pointing fingers of the catkins, and the whole tree produces a most pleasing effect. Although the hop hornbeam frequents the woods, it never makes even a small area its own. It is always found mixed with other trees, and I have never seen even a little grove of hop hornbeam trees growing alone.

The wood is very strong, hard, heavy, tough, and durable, and is used for fence posts, the handles of tools, and small articles.

The generic name, Ostrya, comes from the Greek ostryos (a scale), in reference to the scaly catkins of the fruit. Virginiana is the specific name for the North American hop hornbeam as distinguished from the European species, which it closely resembles.

The hop hornbeam is found in rich woods from Nova Scotia to Northern Florida, and westward to Eastern Kansas.

Carpinus caroliniana]

A tree or tall shrub 10 to 25 feet high. Bark smooth and dark gray, tough like a horn, and close-fitting. The buds are oval. Delicate twigs, in flat, spreading layers. Alternate leaf-scars. Fruit in clusters,—leaf-like bracts, holding little nuts.

Carpinus caroliniana

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The hornbeam, like the hop hornbeam, is a small tree and is found growing under larger trees in the woods. It is readily distinguished from the hop hornbeam by its smooth, dark bark, the hornlike appearance of which instantly suggests its name. There is but one native species in New England, and it is much smaller than its sister tree from Europe of the same name. The European hornbeam has long been used for making hedges, and in Germany the hornbeams are planted in such a manner that every two plants intersect each other in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross. At the point where the two plants cross each other the bark is scraped off and the hornbeams are bound together closely with straw. The two plants grow together in a knot and send out horizontal shoots in a few years, making an impenetrable hedge. The hornbeam was much used in formal gardens for labyrinths, arcades, and groves, and as hedges for geometric designs known as “the star” and “the goose-foot.”

The wood, like that of the hop hornbeam, is hard, heavy, strong, and close-grained. It is used for small articles, like the handles of tools.

The generic name, Carpinus, comes from the Celtic car (wood), pinda (head), meaning that the wood was used for making the yokes of cattle. The specific name, caroliniana, was used to distinguish the American from the European species.