Taxonomy
Family: Betulaceae
Habitat
Moist woods
Associates
Distribution
Southern ME and southern Quebec, to DE, OH, and KY, and in mountains to GA and AL.
Morphology
Deciduous tree to 25 m tall; bark smooth, red-brown when young with prominent lenticels, becoming rough with large, thickened, plates on large specimens. Leaves ovate or ovate-oblong, to 10 cm, acute or short-acuminate, very finely and sharply serrate, rounded to subcordate at the base, appressed-villous on the veins below, often in pairs on spur branches; lateral veins in 9-12 pairs, impressed above. Fruiting catkins sessile or subsessile, short-cylindric to ellipsoid or slightly obovoid, to 3 cm; scales glabrous, to 5-7 mm long, the middle lobe somewhat prolonged, and the lateral lobes oblong and divergent or ascending.
Notes
Flowers April
Wetland Indicator: Facultative Upland
Similar to Yellow Birch, which has pubescent (rather than glabrous) pistillate scales that are 6-13 mm long. Like Yellow Birch, the twigs of Sweet Birch have a wintergreen odor when broken but have a sweeter taste. Sometimes called Cherry Birch because the dark, smooth bark of young trees resembles some species of Cherry.
References
Gleason, Henry A.
and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States
and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY
Swink, F. and G.
Wilhelm. 1994. Plants of the Chicago Region.
Indiana Academy of Science. The Morton Arboretum. Lisle, Illinois.
USDA, NRCS. 2002.
The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5 (http://plants.usda.gov).
National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA
© Michael Hough 2009 |