| + | Betula lutea, Michx. (B. excelsa, Pursh, not Ait.). Yellow Birch. Fig. 547. Tree, sometimes 100 ft.: bark silvery gray or light orange, on old trunks reddish brown; young bark aromatic, but somewhat bitter: branchlets usually rounded at the base, acuminate, sharply and doubly serrate, usually hairy along the veins beneath : cones like the last, but thicker; scales nearly ⅓in. long, lobed to the middle, pubescent outside. From Newfoundland west to Minn., south along the Alleghanies to the high peaks of N. C. and Tenn. S.S. 9:449. Em. 235. H.T. 126, 127.—One of the most valuable forest trees in the northern states, much resembling the former in habit. Var. persicifolia, Dipp., has larger and longer Lvs., often ovate-lanceolate. |