Paper Birch - Betula papyrifera

Paper Birch - Betula papyrifera
Common names: Paper Birch, Canoe Birch, Silver Birch, White Birch, Bouleau blanc, Bouleau à papier (French), Papier-Birken (German)
Paper Birch is a medium sized, single or multiple stemmed, deciduous tree. In forests a slender trunk with a narrow crown, but in openings a wider crown spreading out from near the base. Height at maturity 70'-80' and 10"-12" in diameter, sometimes to 30". Short-lived. Height growth ceases at about 60-70 years of age; few live more than 140 years.

The paper birch on the right was grown from seed, and is 26 years old at this photo.

Paper Birch grows in climates ranging from boreal to humid and tolerates wide variations in precipitation. Its northern limit of growth is arctic Canada and Alaska, in boreal spruce woodlands, in mountain and sub alpine forests of the western United States, the Great Plains, and in coniferous - deciduous forests of the Northeast and Great Lakes states.

The tree is particularly shade-intolerant. Where it occurs in old-growth forests, it is restricted to sunny glades and openings. Birches are often the first trees to repopulate logged, disturbed or burned acreage. Where such populations exist, they often crowd out other species, and form pure stands of silvery-white barked trees. In this habit, they are quite like the Black Walnut; walnuts are generally among the first trees sprouting in disturbed places of the woodlots and bottomlands of the American Midwest. Birches grow in almost any soil, but best in deep, well-drained alluvial soils with a sandy component; such soils are common at glacial deposits. It grows on a wide range of soil textures from gravels to silts, and grows on organic bog and peat soils.

The birches have long been popular ornamental trees in America, chiefly in the northern United States and Canada. Several are native Americans, but many species have been introduced from Europe and Asia. In general, they are graceful trees, the most popular being those with white bark on trunks and larger branches. Some of the others are very serviceable, either because they will grow well in wet soil or because they will exist as well as any other trees, or better, in dry, poor soils.

Animals dependant on Birch

Moose: Important browse throughout most of range. Nutritional quality is poor in winter, but is important to wintering moose because of its sheer abundance in young stands.
White-tailed Deer: though considered a "secondary-choice food", it is an important dietary component. In Minnesota, white-tailed deer eat considerable amounts of paper birch leaves in the fall.
Snowshoe hare browse paper birch seedlings and saplings.
Porcupines feed on the inner bark
Beaver also eat it though generally prefer aspen, while willow and paper birch are second choice foods.
Voles and shrews eat the seeds.
Numerous birds and small mammals eat paper birch buds, catkins and seeds.
Young paper birch stands provide prime deer and moose cover.

Birds:

Numerous cavity-nesting birds nest in paper birch, including woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, and swallows.
A favorite feeding tree of yellow-bellied sapsuckers, which peck holes in the bark to feed on the sap. Hummingbirds and red squirrels also feed at sap wells in paper birch created by sapsuckers.
Ruffed grouse eat the catkins and buds.
Redpolls, siskins, and chickadees obtain a considerable portion of their annual diet from birch seeds

Paper Birch Bark

Paper Birch is shallow-rooted: few roots go deeper than 24" below the soil surface. Bark is reddish-brown on saplings; on mature trees thin, white, and smooth, separating into papery strips. Native Americans gathered bark for canoe construction during a winter thaw or just when the sap started to flow in the spring. A tree of the desired size, with bark up to nine layers thick, was felled and trimmed and the bark was cut and stripped off in one piece. The wooden frame of the canoe was usually made of northern white cedar. The birch bark, with the brown, inner layer of the bark turned to the outside, formed the skin. Seams were sewn with split roots of spruce or tamarack, then waterproofed with spruce resin. Birch bark canoes made by northern tribes were traded to tribes from more southern regions, where white birch was scarce, and later to European colonists. Our modern canvas and fiberglass canoes are patterned after the Native American birch bark canoe.

Smaller pieces of birch bark were used in making dwellings called wigwams. Wigwams were of two types. The dome-shaped wigwam had a framework of bent saplings that was covered with overlapping layers of birch bark.