Debra Ann Ragsdale, age 12, of Burlington, Vt., for her question:
IS THERE MORE THAN ONE KIND OF BIRCH TREE?
Birch is the name of a group of about 40 slender trees and shrubs of North America, Europe and Northern Asia. They have a thin bark that peels in horizontal layers.
Some birches have bark which separates into sheets almost like paper.
Birches produce long catkins or scaly spikes which contain tiny flowers. The closed male catkins appear in the autumn while the female ones appear the following spring.
Birch trees may grow in pairs or clusters. Their leaves grow alternately on the twig. Birch nutlets are small and grow in a cone.
Paper birch has bark that comes off in strips. The bark is thin and light enough to write on. It is also called white birch. Sometimes it is called canoe birch, because the Indians used its bark to make birchbark canoes. Indians still make ornaments and small baskets from the bark of the paper birch tree.
Paper birch grows 60 to 80 feet high. It has few erect branches and many small horizontal ones. It grows in Canada and the nothern United States, and in the southern Appalachians.
The European white birch grows in northern Europe and has a variety called the weeping birch.
Yellow birch, sometimes called silver birch, has yellowish ox dark gray bark when fully grown. The young twigs have bronze bark. The yellow birch is from 50 to 75 feet tall and has a broad, round top. It grows in Newfoundland, as far west as Minnesota and as far south as North Carolina and Tennessee. Yellow birch is good for timber and used for making furniture.
River birch is sometimes called the red birch. It grows along the banks of ponds, rivers and marshes. It grows in Massachusetts, as far south as Florida, and as far west as Texas. It is a medium sized tree 50 to 60 feet high. It is the only typical birch of the South.
Other popular birch trees include the sweet birch and the gray birch.
Sweet birch is sometimes called the cherry birch, or black birch. When full grown, it is between 60 and 80 feet tall and has a rounded top. Its branches are slender, with delicate twigs which have a wintergreen flavor like that of the yellow birch.
Sweet birch grows in Maine, as far south as Georgia, and as far west as Michigan. Its wood is dark, hard and close grained. It is valuable for furniture and interior finish.
Gray birch is a small graceful tree which seldom grows higher than 40 feet. It grows along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia as far south as Delaware and the Blue Ridge Mountains and northwest as far as Lake Ontario.
The grayish white bark of the gray birch is hard. The layers are tightly together, but can be separated. Dark V shaped patches appear on the bark just below the branches.
Gray birchwood is used for firewood and in making spools, shoe pegs and wood pulp.