Habitat

• native to northeastern United States and northeastern Canada
• zone 3
• common on poor, sandy soils
• an early colonizer of poor sites, road cuts, burned areas.

Habit and Form

• deciduous small to medium tree
• 20' to 40' tall with only a 10' to 20' spread
• narrow conical crown
• grows rapidly
• often multiple stemmed and used as a "clump" birch
• fine texture

Summer Foliage

• alternate, simple leaves, 2" to 3.5" long leaves
• doubly serrate margins
• long acuminate tip on ovate or triangular leaf
• dark green and glabrous
• leafs out early

Autumn Foliage

• yellow
• generally showy

Flowers

• blooms in April, but catkins visible prior to bloom
• monoecious: male and female catkins
• male catkins 2" to 3.5" long; borne singly, rarely in twos

Fruit

• small nutlets held in cylindrical catkins, 0.75" to 1.25" long

Bark

• reddish brown, thin and smooth on young trunks
• chalky white with prominent black triangular patches at the base of each branch
• does not peel very readily

Culture

• very easy to grow
• tolerant of most soils, especially dry, gravely soils
• high pH soils should be avoided to prevent chlorosis

Landscape Use

• for poor soil sites
• difficult sites
• naturalized area
• where guide tree growth is needed
• conservation areas
• possible for bark, but better birches around
• somewhat resistant to bronze birch borer

Liabilities

• birch leaf miner is very disfiguring to the foliage and major limitation. It does not kill the plant however
• tends to be short lived
• very prone to being bent over or snapped off by ice storms of heavy snows

ID Features

• acuminate leaf tips
• black triangular patches on bark at branch bases
• conical in shape and small size
• severe leaf minor damage on leaves

Propagation

• by seed; cold or light will break dormancy

Cultivars/Varieties

• None of significance