Trees Planet: Betula pendula - Silver Birch - Warty Birch

General Information

Common Name	Silver Brich, Warty Birch
Scientific Name	Betula pendula
Sun Tolerance	Full Sun
Height	15–25 ms (49–82 ft)
Spread	9-12 m (30-40 ft)
Growth Rate	Moderate
Bloom Time	Spring
Color	Green, Yellow
Flower Color	Brown
Type	Tree
Native	Europe, North America, Centaral Asia

Classification

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Hamamelididae
Order	Fagales
Family	Betulaceae – Birch family
Genus	Betula L. – birch
Species	B. pendula

Betula pendula - Silver Birch - Warty Birch

Betula pendula common name is Silver Birch, or European Warty Birch, seeds itself so freely in some areas that it is often ignored. However, it is a graceful, slender tree, usually with attractive white bark, and its timber is quite useful. It is a medium-sized deciduous tree, typically reaching 15–25 metres (49–82 ft) tall some trees exceptionally up to 39 metres (128 ft), with a slender trunk usually under 40 centimetres (16 in) diameter, but exceptionally to 1 metre (3.3 ft) diameter, and a crown of arched branches with drooping branchlets. The bark is white, often with black diamond-shaped marks or larger patches, particularly at the base. The shoots are rough with small warts, and hairless, and the leaves 3–7 centimetres (1.2–2.8 in) long, triangular with a broad base and pointed tip, and coarsely double-toothed serrated margins. The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins, produced before the leaves in early spring, the small 1-2mm winged seeds ripening in late summer on pendulous, cylindrical catkins 2–4 centimetres (0.79–1.6 in) long and 7 mm broad. Its purplish-brown twigs are slender, whippy and harsh to the touch and often pendulous. The young shoots are glabrous and bear little pale-colored rough warts. The small brown winter buds are alternate, many-scaled and pointed. In early spring they expand to show in mass a purplish bloom before the leaflets, first light-green then emerald, unfold. The leaves are about one inch broad and somewhat triangular, with a double-toothed margin, always sharply pointed, and hairless bout often rough to the touch. They usually turn yellow before falling.

The yellow male catkins droop like lambs tails, whereas the smaller pale-green female catkins are club-shaped and stand erect until they enlarge and become semi-mature, when they hang down. They open just after the leaves, and by August or September myriads of small winged seeds are produced are released on the winds.

The tough, waxy bark is purplish-brown in young trees, with horizontal bands of lenticels, but on older trees the smooth, papery, peeling bark of the upper part is silver-white, with black diamond-shaped markings, and the base becomes increasingly rough and blackened. On many a tree, growths termed is tough, hard, clean and smooth, very pale brown or cream in color, with a dull surface. Its uses include turnery goods such as brush backs, reels and toys, and paper pulp. The branches are used for besom-heads and horse jumps.

Betula pendula - Silver Birch - Warty Birch : Leaves

The Hairy Birch, B. pubescens Ehrh, with short and soft downy twigs and grey or cherry-like bark, is the second of Britain’s two tall species of native birch. Hybridization and introgression occur between the two species. The terms ‘white birch’ and ‘silver birch’, and the obsolete scientific name Betula alba, have been applied to both of them. Few silvi-culturists make any distinctions between the birches.

Planting birch for timber has seldom been worthwhile economically: the millions growing in Europe. Foresters value the tree for its useful light cover, providing dappled shade which usually enables better trees, inter-planted among the birches, to respond. It is a useful natural pioneer tree, adapted to colonize open land and it coppices freely. In plantations care must be taken to remove whippy birch trees that thrash and damage more desirable species.