Yellow Birch

Plant Characteristics

Habit		tree
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial

Cultivation

Scientific Names

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Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis, synomym B. lutea), is a species of birch native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Québec west to Minnesota, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia.

It is a medium-sized deciduous tree reaching 20 m tall (exceptionally to 30 m) with a trunk up to 80 cm diameter. The bark is smooth, yellow-bronze, flaking in fine horizontal strips, and often with small black marks and scars. The twigs, when scraped, have a slight scent of oil of wintergreen, though not as strongly so as the related Sweet Birch. The leaves are alternate, ovate, 6-12 cm long and 4-9 cm broad, with a finely serrated margin. The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins 3-6 cm long, the male catkins pendulous, the female catkins erect. The fruit, mature in fall, is composed of numerous tiny winged seeds packed between the catkin bracts.

Read about Yellow Birch in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Betula lutea, Michx. (B. excelsa, Pursh, not Ait.). Yellow Birch. Fig. 547. Tree, sometimes 100 ft.: bark silvery gray or light orange, on old trunks reddish brown; young bark aromatic, but somewhat bitter: branchlets usually rounded at the base, acuminate, sharply and doubly serrate, usually hairy along the veins beneath : cones like the last, but thicker; scales nearly ⅓in. long, lobed to the middle, pubescent outside. From Newfoundland west to Minn., south along the Alleghanies to the high peaks of N. C. and Tenn.—One of the most valuable forest trees in the northern states, much resembling the former in habit. Var. persicifolia, Dipp., has larger and longer Lvs., often ovate-lanceolate. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Gallery

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  Yellow Birch bark

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Yellow Birch. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Yellow Birch QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)