The Birch Tree

Descript : This grows a goodly tall straight tree, fraught with many boughs, and slender branches bending downward: the old being covered with discoloured chapped bark, and the younger being browner by much. The leaves at the first breaking out are crumpled, and afterwards like the beech leaves, but smaller and greener, and dented about the edges. It bears short catkins, somewhat like those of the hazelnut- tree, which abide on the branches a long time, until growing ripe, they fall on the ground and their seed with them.

Place : It usually grows in woods.

Government and virtues : It is a tree of Venus; the juice of the leaves, while they are young, or the distilled water of them, or the water that comes from the tree being bored with an auger, and distilled afterwards; any of these being drank for some days together, is available to break the stone in the kidneys and bladder, and is good also to wash sore mouths.