Botanical lore

Named after the unique whiteness of its horizontally striped, papery and peeling bark, that starkly contrasts its dark diamond-shaped markings, birch is a highly distinctive tree.

It needs a lot of light and its silvery, almost metallic, showers of light flicker airily in the sunshine. The whiteness in the bark (that give birch its latin name of betula) is due to the tiny grains of betulin, a crystalline pigment in the bark cells. Its dark purple twigs that easily bend to the wind, and leaves that are small and triangular, sharply-pointed and with a doubly toothed edge, shine a brilliant green in spring and golden yellow in the autumn.

 

Birch is a highly adaptable and pioneering tree that can grow on hard rock, poor sand or acid moorland. It has a shallow root system that confirms the fact that it does not need much from the soil. The few minerals it does need are broken down and made accessible to the tree via a wealth of fungi and lichens.

Birch wood is tough and flexible but rots quickly, becoming vital to insect life such as beetle larvae, which in turn are vital to birdlife.

 

The bark however, is much more durable. It has been used for millenia in the making of boats, canoes, roof tiles (shingles), containers and tanned to make buckets and shoes. The bark contains birch tar, which makes birch wood combustible even when freshly cut. A Russian proverb says the Birch gives light (bark rolled for torches), calms screams (tar for smearing on cart wheels), heals (several areas of body, including bladder) and cleanses (branches are used in saunas).

Female catkins mature in the summer and eventally release masses of small, broadly winged nutlets, that are carried away by the wind and can swiftly colonise wide areas. Only in the early stages of succession can birch trees create a woodland themselves.

 

Tea can be made from the young leaves and birch sap stimulates the gall bladder, kidneys and bladder and is a tonic for the whole metabolism, providing a blood cleansing effect.

Odd notes:
Bircha means shining white in german
Betulin is found in the vacuole (the storage space for sugars, starch and other chemicals)

The Ojibwa Native Americans used birch in sweat lodge cleansing ceremonies
birch family betulaceae
silver birch betula pendula
downy birch betula pubescens

 

Further uses include:
bark : traditionally used for writing materials, tanning, kindling.

wood : bobbins, spools and reels, splint-brooms, carving, haddock-smoking, firebeaters, and even witches broomsticks - actually 'witches broom' - those nest-like galls that hang on birch trees and  are  caused by a variety of fungus called Taphrina, (sparrows nest in them and even inherit old galls); as well as besoms, kitchen whisks...

 sap : tapped in early April for sugar, beer, wine.

 leaves : duiretic, antiseptic, while the wood for urinary infections and ease muscle pains.

Tar : from fresh wood, makes ointment for excema and other skin conditions, or as mouthwash called ‘oil of birch tar’