Birch

Birch (Betula) - Trees of cold and Arctic regions, often forming vast forests. Sometimes, in the extreme north, even the tall and graceful Birches of more temperate lands take a bushy form, and there are also Arctic and northern species which are small and give us little effect or interest except for botanic gardens.

The Birches, generally, are easy to grow and should be raised from seed, in which way they come very easily, excepting what are called the garden or nursery varieties. These are grafted, and might be propagated by layers, if anybody would take the trouble, and in this way might be longer lived and useful in some ways. Owing to the beauty of our native species in all sorts of positions north and south, we have not lost so much by neglecting the American species, but it would be difficult to expect any of them to show anything finer in effect than such woods as we see in Northern and Central Europe, of Birch alone, the silvery stems rising out of heath or Ferns. Among the greater, or tree, Birches after our own (including its varieties or allies, verrucosa and pubescens) are the Canoe Birch (B. papyrifera) or Paper Birch, a forest tree of N. America, which is hardy in Britain; the River Birch (B. nigra), also a tall tree of N. America; the Cherry or Sweet Birch (B. lenta), which is sometimes 80 feet high and also of northern distribution (Canada, Newfoundland); the Yellow Birch (B. lutea), sometimes 100 feet high; the Western Birch (B. occidentalis), a medium-sized tree of W. America and British Columbia, and the White Birch (B. populifolia), also a slender tree of Canada and the Northern States, with tremulous leaves like some of the Aspens. B. maximowiczi is a distinct and fine Japanese kind which grows very high and with a trunk 2 to 3 feet in diameter, the bark orange-colored, the leaves very large. B. ermani is also a common kind in Japan.

Having got a collection from America, I planted them by some ponds where I thought they might have a better chance, as they often grow well near water in their native country. I lost a good many of them, not knowing the cause until I happened to pull up some of the dead young trees, when I found the main roots were all barked round by the common water-rat, working below the line of the snow during a hard winter.

As regards the positions of Birches in a pleasure-ground, there is not a more graceful lawn tree than the cut-leaved and weeping kinds, the more so where trees of light shade are desired. The American tree kinds might take their places in the mixed woodlands of a country place, or by streams or pools.