A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

THE WHITE BIRCH.

On the sandy plains of many parts of New England, some of the most prominent objects are coppices of slender White Birch trees, intermingled with pitch-pine. These trees are seldom more than four or five inches in diameter, rising to the height of about twenty feet, with a grayish-white trunk, and, as may be observed in winter, a dense and dark-colored spray. This species is called Poplar Birch, from the tremulous habit of the foliage, but is never assembled in large forest groups. Like the alder, it is employed by Nature for the shading of her living pictures, and for producing those gradations which are the charm of spontaneous wood-scenery. In all the Northern States, a pitch-pine wood is generally fringed with White Birches, and outside of them is a still more humble growth of hazels, cornels, and vacciniums, uniting them imperceptibly with the herbage of the plain.

The White Birch is remarkable for its elegance. It seldom divides the main stem, which extends to the summit of the tree, giving out from all parts numerous slender branches, forming a very neat and beautiful spray, of a dark chocolate-color, contrasting finely with the whiteness of the trunk. This tree, when growing as a standard, has more of a pyramidal shape than in a wood; but it does not attain in this country the magnitude of the same species in Europe. The durability of the bark of the White Birch is said to be unsurpassed by that of any other vegetable substance. Selby records a fact related by Du Hamel, which is remarkable. In the ruins of Dworotrkoi, in Siberia, a piece of birch wood was found changed into stone, while the outer bark, white and shining, remained in its natural state.

So many of the most delightful scenes of nature are in my own mind allied with the different birches, that there is not one that does not immediately call up some charming scenery and impress my mind with pleasant memories. He who in his early days was a rambler in the woods is familiar with the White Birch trees. They have shaded him in his sylvan researches and his solitary musings, his social walks in quest of flowers with the sex for whom the flowers seemed to be created, or with his male companions in pursuit of game. When journeying, these graceful trees, in company with the fragrant pitch-pines, have offered him their flickering shade, and along the sandy plains have defended him from the scorching heat of the sun, and spread a leafy canopy over his rustic path. In the sultry heat of summer noonday, I have often followed the course of some humble cart-path through their tangled undergrowth, gathering wild fruits from bush and bramble, or watching the singing birds that nestled in their boughs and blended their wild notes with the sound of the green rustling leaves.

All the birches are graceful trees. Their branches are finely divided, like those of the elm and the lime, and many of them incline to a drooping habit. There is a remarkable airiness in their slender feathery spray, rendered still more lively in the White Birch by its small tremulous leaves. This species is found in the highest latitude in which any tree can live. It is the last deciduous tree in the northern boundaries of vegetation in America and Europe, before we reach the Arctic Circle, and the last that appears when we ascend high mountains, occupying the belt just below the line of perpetual snow. It is worthy of notice that the small White Birch in this country, though considered identical with the White Birch of Europe, is greatly inferior to it in size. In America, however, the white canoe birch, a very similar species, equally surpasses the European White Birch. It seems as if the thrifty habit of the canoe birch had some mysterious influence in dwarfing the other species in America.