=Birch= (_Betula_), is known by all on account of its chalk-white bark, and its fine, pendent leaves. The male and female blossoms of this tree also grow separate on the same plant. Its seeds are small and plumed, whereby they are particularly adapted for being sown by the aid of the wind. There are about thirteen species in North America. COMMON BIRCH, abounding in northern Europe, is a beautiful tree sixty to seventy feet high. The bark is used in medicine and dyeing, and it yields the birch tar employed in the preparation of Russia leather. RED or RIVER BIRCH grows in the United States from Massachusetts to Iowa and Kansas, south to Florida and Texas. It is a slender tree, seventy to ninety feet high, which produces a hard, valuable timber. CHERRY BLACK or SWEET BIRCH is a large tree, sometimes eighty feet high. Wood fine grained and valuable for making furniture. The bark yields an oil identical with the oil of wintergreen. It grows from Newfoundland to western Ontario, Florida, and Tennessee. YELLOW BIRCH, a large tree, maximum height one hundred feet, is used in shipbuilding. It grows from Newfoundland to Manitoba, south to Carolina and Tennessee. PAPER or CANOE BIRCH, a large tree, maximum height eighty feet, is of a beautiful white color, and the bark is capable of division into thin sheets, used for making canoes, baskets, and ornaments. Found in Newfoundland to Alaska, northern Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington.
=Cedar= (_Cedrus_), the popular name of a variety of trees, mostly agreeing in having a reddish-brown aromatic wood. The coniferous genus includes only four forms, all native to the Old World, the most noted of which are the Cedars of Lebanon, frequently mentioned in the Bible. It has its needle-like leaves fascicled, like the larches; but unlike those trees, evergreen, so that they remain on the tree for several years after the dwarf-shoot has elongated. Its cones are erect, with broad, thin-edged scales which ultimately fall away from the axis, as in the firs. The WHITE CEDAR of the United States is more nearly a cypress, and the so-called RED CEDAR is a juniper. The wood of the latter is used in making lead-pencils. The species native to the West Indies, yields the wood known as Honduras, Jamaica, or Barbadoes cedar, used for cigar boxes.