![](http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/uploaded_images/birch-1-737194.jpg)
I was walking on 43d Avenue and within sight of my house on Athlone, when I spotted white stuff on my boulevard lawn. I immediately thought of the children from the nearby elementary school who have a habit of throwing the remnants of their lunch on the way home. When I was close I knew I was wrong. I was most pleasantly surprised. A recent wind must have blown off a large swath of the peeling bark of my Betula utilis var. jacquemontii or Himalayan Birch. Any tree as beautiful as this one should require (in my books) a mouthful to pranounce. I first spotted this white ghost (a grove of them) at VanDusen Botanical Garden one late February some 17 years ago. Both Rosemary and I knew we would plant one in our garden. Our specimen has grown quickly and is almost as big as the VanDusen ones. It is a sentinel of my winter garden. Even though I am not an American this tree reminds me (as well as the VanDusen specimens) of Confederate soldiers wearing their bleached grays, standing their ground in spite of an inevitable defeat.
![](http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/uploaded_images/Birch-2-700344.jpg)
The two panoramic pictures I took in February 1992 when Rosemary said, "Let's go for a walk in VanDusen." I replied, "You must be crazy. What can we see that is of possible interest?" Of course She was right. In my own small way I contributed by bringing along that swivel lensed Widelux loaded with Kodak Infrared film.
![](http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/uploaded_images/Birch-bark-1-copy-707375.jpg)
The other two images are scans of the bark I found yesterday. The green comes from the grass that the bark has been on for perhaps a few days or weeks. The brown colour is on the inside. This image I scanned from the bottom, placing the bark on the flatbed scanner. The second image is a double scan. I treated the bark as a transparency and my scanner passed on both the top and bottom simultaneously.
![](http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/uploaded_images/Birch-bark-2-copy-755707.jpg)