Description: Small to medium sized tree with narrow, pointed habit in young trees; older trees slowly lose pointed top to become high-domed, with long pendulous branchlets. Bole usually deeply fluted.

Height: 15-30 m
Diameter: 0.3-1 m

Leaves: 3-7 cm, truncate, slightly rounded triangular, acuminate; six pairs of veins to protruding, acuminate teeth separated by two to three small triangular teeth. Petiole slender, 1.5 cm, glabrous.

Shoots: dark purplish-brown, roughened by raised white warts. Bud: young trees blunt ovoid, 3 mm, dull purple-brown; mature trees conic ovoid, 4 mm, shiny green.

Bark: At first, shiny red-brown, like a cherry tree, later pinkish white with horizontal, broad, pale grey bands and some dark grey scaling patches, finally white with big black diamonds; often deeply fissured at base into small black knobbly plates.

Flowers: Male catkins 2-4 together on ends of small shoots, visible all winter when pale purple-brown, 2 × 0.3 cm, curved; lengthen to 3 cm and pale yellow as pollen shed in April. Female flowers six or so on branched stalk standing erect from shoot at base of some male catkins, open pale green, 1-1.5 cm, turn down and thicken into fruit.

Cones: 2-3 × 0.4 cm, gherkin-shaped, turning brown in late autumn and breaking up, helped by birds (redpolls, siskins, goldfinches, tits) during winter.

Habitat: Light soils and shallow peats. Abundant on heaths and gravels, hills and moorlands, wood-edges and scrub. Highly resistant to frost.

Range: Throughout Europe, including north to 65°, but absent from Iberian peninsula and Mediterranean coasts.

The bark is valuable for tanning, leaving a very delicate aroma on the hides. Its silvery colour is due to the presence of betulin. Birch oil (oil of wintergreen), which contains antiseptic principles, is distilled from the bark and is used particularly for skin ailments. The leaves yield a yellow dye and are also used for preparing an infusion with diuretic properties. In spring, after fermentation of the sap, alcoholic drinks or vinegar are obtained. The young, flexible branches are used for wicker work.

Seedlings may be 1m tall, and shoots of 1m common in early years. To 15m in 20 years or less, but later growth very slow. In the south, matures at 50-60 years and dies back and breaks up rapidly, but in C Scotland, can be healthy at 180 years. In sylviculture, it often serves as a species for consolidating loose, bare slopes, spreading rapidly as a result of abundant seed production and low demand for nutrients.

Information: Mitchell (1988), MacDonald (1984)

Source/Purchased:

Planted: Three in garden, seedlings from these used in European strip. Also two of cultivar 'youngii' in Eurostrip and shelter belt.

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