'black birch’ occurs more frequently in the records than ’yellow birch’ (Table 1-5), perhaps because in the old-growth forests of the island the mature form of the tree was more prevalent than the younger yellow-barked trees. Also, because of its larger size it is likely that ’black birch’ was considered of greater economic importance than the smaller trees that were labeled as ’yellow birch’, and perhaps for that reason it was more likely to attract attention.

On a final point of nomenclature, it seems likely that the ”Which-hazle" that Curtis (1775) recorded as an important component of the hardwood forests of the New London Bay area may also have been Betu/a alleghaniensis.419

General distribution and abundance 'Birch’ or ’birches’, usually with further specific differentiation, occur in every one of the thirty-six complete tree lists (Table 1-5)“°, with some of the list-makers including the genus among the island's more important trees.421 Of the twenty-four recorders who further differentiated between the birch species, all noted the presence of what we now call yellow birch (Betu/a alleghaniensis) — though, as noted above, eleven of these over-

Cape Breton “at the beginning of the nineteenth century" also wondered whether the black birch was in fact ”the aged yellow birch“, particularly as he had never seen a young black birch, and I note from Gorham (1955) that Titus Smith, the renowned Nova Scotia naturalist. considered black and yellow birch to be the same species.

“9 Curtis wrote: “where the hard Wood grew its common to find several Acres together of Beech or Birch or Maple or Which-Hazle the three latter growing mutch larger than any I ever Saw grow in England". The true witch-hazel (Hamame/is virginiana) occurs on Prince Edward Island (Erskine 1960), but it only ever attains shrub size and thus cannot be Curtis’ tree. However, in eighteenth century England ‘witch hazel‘ (or ‘wych hazel') was a name given to the broad-leaved or wych elm (U/mus glabra, formerly U/mus montana) (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, Vol. XX: 664; Johns, 1903, p. 231). It is unlikely that Curtis could have been referring to the American elm (U/mus amen’cana) which does not occur with beech, maple and birch as an element in the climax hardwood forest. l suggest rather that he is probably referring to mature yellow birch trees, which to the woodland novice would bear little resemblance in its bark to the typical birch. The leaves of yellow birch also bear a resemblance to those of the wych elm — though I note that Curtis only arrived on the island on 6 November, presumably by which time the leaves had fallen, and he sailed on 12 May, probably before the trees were in leaf. At the same time it is possible that Curtis‘ ‘Birch' is also Betula alleghaniensis — but younger trees with recognizably birch-like bark.

420

For the thirty-seventh list ([Watson] post 1904), the page that would have contained the birches was missing.

‘2‘ ii is a ‘principal’ tree of Holland (1765) (March), Patterson (1770), [Hill?] (1819), MacGregor (1832), Martin (1837), Murray (1839), Monro (1855); among “the most prevailing hard wood trees“ of [Cambridge] (1796?); one of the ‘chief trees of Anon.

(1877); and one of the four main tree genera of Walsh (1803).

203

differentiated it as two separate species. Stewart (1806) commented that it ”was common all over the Island” in old-growth forest, or as he put it: ”where the original growth of timber has not been destroyed by fire”.

Twenty-one list-makers noted the presence of Betu/a papyrifera (under the names of either ’white’ or ’canoe' birch); while only eight recorded the grey birch B. popu/ifo/ia (as ’grey’, ‘poplar- leaved', or ’poplar' birch) (Table 1-5). Clearly grey birch was either very much less common than the other two species, or much less likely to attract attention — its first ever mention in island records, including those of the French period, is by Stewart in 1806. The birches also led the broad-leaved trees in the tree tally (Table 1-1). We may thus conclude that the birch genus was prevalent on the island, with especially the yellow and white birches attracting the attention of the list-makers.

Specific areas — ’Birch’ or ’birches’ (often with the species either further specified or deducible from the context) is recorded at quite a number of different places on the island (Figure 1-9). Yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis) is reported from many of the same sites discussed earlier for beech and maple — and by the same recorders: along the Richmond Bay frontage of Lot 13“”, including both sides of the Trout River, as well as on the ridge of land running inland south of the same river‘”; in the area of the New London settlement at Elizabethtown‘m; ”on the North of Point Prim”“25; on the south side of the Pinette River (probably its North Branch) ”50 or 100 yards back from the water”“5; and along the shore to the west of Wood Islands on ”the land above the bank”425 — implying away from the shoreline; at Mount Stewart, on the south side of the Hillsborough Riverm; in the environs of Charlottetown”; in the

hardwood forests of Lot 47 he the lot containing

‘22 Morris 1769; Palmer 1815; Gray 1793. ‘23 Gray 1793.

‘2‘ Curtis 1775 (see footnote 419); Chappell 1775-1818 (in 1778). Also, [Lawson] (1877-1878), retrospectively, noted 'birches' as contributing to the forest of the New London area at the time of settlement.

‘25 Selkirk 1303.

‘25 MacGregor 1828.

427

Patterson 1770; MacGregor 1828; Chappell 1775-1818. Entries in Chappell’s daybook for 1798, 1799 and 1800 indicate that he and/or his sons out both yellow and white birch “over the water”, i.e. across the Hillsborough River, presumably somewhere in Lot 48, where he frequently got his wood.