On The Road(s) Again

Two or three posts ago I visited an old back road in Swanzey on a rainy day, complaining that the day was so dark I couldn’t see any of the tree colors that I knew were there. On this day though the sun was shining brightly and wow, could I see the tree colors. Many of the trees out here are black birch (Betula lenta,) which is also called sweet birch or cherry birch. The “cherry” birch name comes from its bark, which along with its leaves can fool you into thinking you’re seeing a wild cherry tree. Run your thumbnail down a branch to scratch off some bark and take a sniff though, and you’ll know it isn’t a cherry. If it’s a black birch it will smell like wintergreen. Back before we had artificial flavoring this tree was cut almost to the point of extinction so its wintergreen essence could be extracted. Oil of wintergreen was used for everything from relieving toothache pain to flavoring candy. Even Native Americans used the tree for pain relief but they never cut it on the scale…