Betula – Latin name for birch

Leaves:

• alternate
• simple
• usually ovate w/ parallel veins
• usually serrate margin
• deciduous stipules

Flowers:

• monoecious
• flowers in pendulous catkins
  • male – 3 per scale
  • female – 3 per bract
• 2–3 stamens

Fruit:

• upright or pendulous, catkin-like
• scale-like bracts are often trident shaped and small
• wind dispersed

Other notes:

• trees to 90 ft. or shrubs
• deciduous
• thin, white, pink, or reddish and often peeling bark
• lenticels in bark aid transfer of oxygen to roots in saturated conditions
• bronze birch borer from Asia decimating birches
• genetically plastic genus, often with morphological variation continuous between species
• hybridization is common

Species:

• Betula papyrifera (paper birch)