. Handbook of the trees of the northern states and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, photo-descriptive . Trees. Handbook of Teees of the JSToETHEEisr States and Canada. 119 This is the smallest of the tree Birches of eastern North America, commonly not more than 20 or 30 ft., or exceptionally 40 ft., in height, with trunk sometimes 18 in. in di- ameter. The bark of younger trees is dull creamy white, usually with dark triangular marks at the insertion of branches, and peeling oflf tardily in strips around the trunk. On older trunks it is darker and rough with transverse fissures. It develops
. Handbook of the trees of the northern states and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, photo-descriptive . Trees. Handbook of Teees of the JSToETHEEisr States and Canada. 119 This is the smallest of the tree Birches of eastern North America, commonly not more than 20 or 30 ft., or exceptionally 40 ft., in height, with trunk sometimes 18 in. in di- ameter. The bark of younger trees is dull creamy white, usually with dark triangular marks at the insertion of branches, and peeling oflf tardily in strips around the trunk. On older trunks it is darker and rough with transverse fissures. It develops a narrow and more or less irregular top of many small branches commonly clothing the stem to the ground. With its long stemmed small leaves in constant agitation by the wind, like those of the Quaking Asp, and white bark, it is a conspicuous and interesting object. It com- monly grows in dry sandy and often quite barren soil, springing up in abundance after forest fires and affording by its shade a shelter for the germinating of the more tender seeds of more useful trees. Its wood, a cubic foot of which, when abso- lutely dry, weighs lbs., is used in the manufacture of small wooden-ware, as spools, clothes-pins, shoe-pegs, hoops for casks, etc., and is excellent for fuel and Leaves triang:ular-ovoid. from 2-3i^ in. long, with very slender points, truncate, obtuse or slightly cordate and entire at base, doubly serrate with spreading glandular teeth, dark shining green and glandular-roughened above and slightly paler and smooth beneath ; petioles long and slender; branchlets resin-glandular. Flowers un- folding with the leaves ; staminate aments solitary or in pairs, about 1 in. or less in length and slender in winter, becoming from 2-.*^!^ in. long, with apiculate scales ; pistillate aments slender, about % in. long, on glandular pedicels of about the same length with pale green scales. Fruit: stro- biles cylindrical, about % in. long and Vi in. thick, erect or
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