A few odd characteristics:
- It is aromatic. When the twigs or foliage are crushed in the hand it smells like wintergreen.
- The twigs are greenish brown, slender and hairy. Other tree twigs can be hairy. Don't let that fool you. Crush the twig in the hand and smell the aroma it releases.
- The bark is shiny yellow or silvery grey. Some people like to call this the silver birch, but, that is incorrect.
- It has cones, just like a pine tree. It is a deciduous hardwood tree because it loses leaves one a year. Pines are considered to be softwoods. The cones produce two winged "nutlets" that mature in the autumn/fall. They don't do well in thick forest floor liter. They do best in gaps caused by fire or wind. The seedlings do well in cracks in boulders and on rotting logs. Sometimes their roots look stilted because it started it's life growing over top of a log or stump. There are a lot of nutrients where logs rot. A seed crop is considered over 1 to 2 years and can produce a million seeds per acre. This is a survival strategy by the Yellow Birch of which squirrels are very grateful.
Facts:
- Species name is Betula alleghaniensis Britton (click here) - The mature height is 70 to 100 feet.
- The average diameter of the trunk at maturity is 2 and a half feet maximum.
- Yellow Birch will grow 10 feet in six years.
- It is known to have lived 200 years, but, that is not a young forest, that is Old Growth Forest.
- Young trees are sometimes mistaken for the Sweet Birch.
- The Yellow Birch is the most shade tolerant species of all the Birch family.
- It is not only a member of a transition forest, it is considered a transition species at low elevation hardwood forests and montane spruce-fir forests
- It can be found nearly everywhere, even swampy woods. It does best in moist, well drained soils, along stream banks and ravines.
- The bark produces paper curls strips; over time it becomes reddish-brown and fissured into scaly plates.
- Flowers are monoeous which means it has separate male and female parts on the same plant. The male flowers occur in clusters of 3 to 6 reddish-green catkins that appear on the twigs every fall/autumn.The female catkins stand upright on the branch about 3/4 to 1-1/4 inches long at maturity. The picture to the right shows both on the same twig. The male is at the end and the female on further back on the branch.
- Seed production occurs at age 40 and maximizes at age 70 years. It is easy now to understand why there can be a million seeds found per acre.
- The leaf of the Yellow Birch is green, toothed, simple leaf of 3 to 5 inches in length and 1-1/2 to 2 inches wide. They are elliptical, short-pointed or rounded at the base. It is sharply and doubly saw-toothed as the margins. The double toothed description means there is a prominent tooth next to a smaller one. The proper name for this shape of leaf is "doubly serrated." It has a main vein, with 9 to 11 veins on each side coming off it. The young leaf is hairy, It is a dull green color at maturity. It is bright yellow in the autumn/fall canopy.
Yellow Birch wood is used for any purpose where wood is necessary. It is hardwood. It sells for approximately $1.17 per square foot. That is the retail price.
