[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.--Betula lutea.] 1. Winter buds. 2. Flower-buds. 3. Flowering branch. 4-6. Sterile flowers. 7. Fertile flower. 8. Bract. 9. Fruiting branch. 10. Fruit. =Betula nigra, L.= RED BIRCH. RIVER BIRCH. =Habitat and Range.=--Along rivers, ponds, and woodlands inundated a part of the year. Doubtfully and indefinitely reported from Canada. No stations in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, or Connecticut; New Hampshire,--found sparingly along streams in the southern part of the state; abundant along the banks of Beaver brook, Pelham (F. W. Batchelder); Massachusetts,--along the Merrimac river and its tributaries, bordering swamps in Methuen and ponds in North Andover. South, east of the Alleghany mountains, to Florida; west, locally through the northern tier of states to Minnesota and along the Gulf states to Texas; western limits, Nebraska, Kansas, Indian territory, and Missouri. =Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, 30-50 feet high, with a diameter at the ground of 1-1-1/2 feet; reaching much greater dimensions southward. The trunk, frequently beset with small, leafy, reflexed branchlets, and often only less frayed and tattered than that of the yellow birch, develops a light and feathery head of variable outline, with numerous slender branches, the upper long and drooping, the reddish spray clothed with abundant dark-green foliage. =Bark.=--Reddish, more or less separable into layers, fraying into shreddy, cinnamon-colored fringes; in old trees thick, dark reddish-brown, and deeply furrowed; branches dark red or cinnamon, giving rise to the name of "red birch"; season's shoots downy, pale-dotted. =Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds small, mostly appressed near the ends of the shoots, tapering at both ends. Leaves simple, alternate, 3-4 inches long, two-thirds as wide, dark green and smooth above, paler and soft-downy beneath, turning bright yellow in autumn; outline rhombic-ovate, with unequal and sharp double serratures; leafstalk short and downy; stipules soon falling. =Inflorescence.=--April to May. Sterile catkins usually in threes, 2-4 inches long, scales 2-3-flowered: fertile catkins bright green, cylindrical, stalked; bracts 3-lobed, the central lobe much the longest, tomentose, ciliate. =Fruit.=--June. Earliest of the birches to ripen its seed; fruiting catkins 1-2 inches long, cylindrical, erect or spreading; bracts with the 3 lobes nearly equal in width, spreading, the central lobe the longest: nut ovate to obovate, ciliate. =Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; grows in all soils, but prefers a station near running water; young trees grow vigorously and become attractive objects in landscape plantations; especially useful along river banks to bind the soil; retains its lower branches better than the black or yellow birches. Seldom found in nurseries, and rather hard to transplant; collected plants do fairly well. [Illustration: PLATE XXXII.--Betula nigra.]