=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; prefers moist, rich soil, near running water, on the edges of wet land or on rocky slopes in shade. Its irregular outline and curiously ridged trunk make it an interesting object in landscape plantations. It is not often used, however, because it is seldom grown in nurseries, and collected plants do not bear removal well. Propagated from the seed. [Illustration: PLATE XXIX.--Carpinus Caroliniana.] 1. Winter buds. 2. Flowering branch. 3. Sterile flower, back view. 4. Sterile flower, front view. 5. Fertile catkin. 6. Fertile flower. 7. Fruiting branch. =BETULA.= Inflorescence.--In scaly catkins, sterile and fertile on the same tree, appearing with or before the leaves from shoots of the previous season,--sterile catkins terminal and lateral, formed in summer, erect or inclined in the bud, drooping when expanded in the following spring; sterile flowers usually 3, subtended by a shield-shaped bract with 2 bractlets; each flower consisting of a 1-scaled calyx and 2 anthers, which appear to be 4 from the division of the filaments into two parts, each of which bears an anther cell: fertile catkins erect or inclined at the end of very short leafy branchlets; fertile flowers subtended by a 3-lobed bract falling with the nuts; bractlets none; calyx none; corolla none; consisting of 2-3 ovaries crowned with 2 spreading styles. =Betula lenta, L.= BLACK BIRCH. CHERRY BIRCH. SWEET BIRCH. =Habitat and Range.=--Moist grounds; rich woods, old pastures, fertile hill-slopes, banks of rivers. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to the Lake Superior region. Maine,--frequent; New Hampshire,--in the highlands of the southern section, and along the Connecticut river valley to a short distance north of Windsor; Vermont,--frequent in the western part of the state, and in the southern Connecticut valley (_Flora of Vermont_, 1900); Massachusetts and Rhode Island,--frequent throughout, especially in the highlands, less often near the coast; Connecticut,--widely distributed, especially in the Connecticut river valley, but not common. South to Delaware, along the mountains to Florida; west to Minnesota and Kansas. =Habit.=--A medium-sized or rather large tree, 50-75 feet high, with a trunk diameter of 1-4 feet, often conspicuous along precipitous ledges, springing out of crevices in the rocks and assuming a variety of picturesque forms. In open ground the dark trunk develops a symmetrical, wide-spreading, hemispherical head broadest at its base, the lower limbs horizontal or drooping sometimes nearly to the ground. The limbs are long and slender, often more or less tortuous, and separated ultimately into a delicate, polished spray. Distinguished by its long purplish-yellow, pendulous catkins in spring, and in summer by its glossy, bright green, and abundant foliage, which becomes yellow in autumn.