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.
European White Birch Betula alba
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,—
EUROPEAN WHITE BIRCH
Betula alba
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“Where weeps the birch with silver bark
And long dishevelled hair.”