The Yellow Birch tree (Betula alleghaniensis)

The Yellow Birch tree is also known in many areas as Golden Birch.  Our Quebecois readers will certainly be quite familiar with this species, as it is the provincial tree of Quebec.  In that province, it is sometimes referred to as the merisier.

The yellow birch tree has long been sought as an important tree in North America's lumber industry.  Traditionally, its wood has been used for everything from flooring and furniture and veneer to doors, cabinets, and even toothpicks.  If you go to a lumber store and buy birch, chances are high that it is yellow birch that you're getting.  The wood of the yellow birch can be polished quite well, and also looks good when stain is applied.  The colour of the wood is not consistent though.  It can sometimes be quite white, but some trees tend to be very dark yellowish.  The name though comes from the golden yellowish colour of the bark as the tree starts to mature.  For the kings and queens of old, gold symbolized the crown.  That seems appropriate, since the yellow birch is the most regal of the birches.

Within Canada, yellow birch is only found naturally in the eastern half of the country.  It's a very common hardwood in Quebec and the Maritime provinces, and down through the eastern seaboard of the US.  Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Although yellow birch is not known for being a tree that likes to live in swamps, I've found in the past that I tend to discover more yellow birch in wetter areas and slopes than in flat open areas, whereas I see more paper birch in those drier areas.

Yellow birch will eventually grow to be the largest birch species in North America.  They can grow to be more than 25m tall (80 feet) and almost a meter (three feet) in diameter, although mature trees are more likely to be a bit narrower than that.  Yellow birch trees can live to be more than two hundred years old if left undisturbed.

The seeds of the yellow birch are interesting.  The tree produces significant amounts of seed some years, and minor amounts in other years.  The yellow birch has catkins which are the tree's flowers.  Each tree is "monoecious" which means that it produces both male and female flowers on the same tree.  The male catkins hang down from the ends of branches, and are usually a couple inches long.  The female catkins are only half this size, and grow upright beside the leaves.  When the tiny seeds are released in the autumn, they don't tend to establish when they sit on top of a layer of leaf litter.  However, if they land in an area with more moisture, they are more likely to germinate (especially in moss or in cracks of logs and rocks).  Yellow birch also grows from seed quite easily in nurseries.

Yellow birch can be distinguished from paper birch fairly easily by looking at the bark.  In addition to differences in the colour, the yellow birch peels off in very fine, small, curly strips compared to paper birch.  Many of these peelings are less than a centimeter wide.

Historically, the yellow birch had many uses beyond lumber.  In addition to being used to make tea, yellow birch can be used to make a syrup, much like maple syrup.  Although it is usually quite a bit more expensive than the more traditional maple syrup, you should be able to find it in a lot of Canadian grocery stores.  You can find books on Amazon that describe the science of tapping and distilling birch syrup, although this information is usually included as side notes in books about making maple syrup.  Birch syrup needs to be distilled more, thus a smaller volume of the end product is produced than from the same volume of maple sap.  

Birch syrup and maple syrup have very different tastes to them.  This isn't surprising when you dig deeper.  Maple syrup is mostly composed of sucrose, whereas the sugars in birch syrup are mostly fructose with a bit of glucose.  Birch syrup is much darker and stronger than maple syrup, and arguably quite a bit healthier for you.  Some people compare the taste of birch syrup with that of molasses, depending on how it is made.  Due to this, many people prefer the taste of maple syrup.  For some, birch syrup is an acquired taste.  There's a good article about birch syrup at this link:

https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2015/04/weighing-the-pros/

Aside from its use as a hardwood for lumber, for firewood, or for the production of birch syrup, here are a few fun facts about the yellow birch:

1.  A decoction of birch (boiling out a liqueur from the plant) can be used as a sleep aid.

2.  When turned into an essential oil, yellow birch is often used as an anti-inflammatory to relieve joint or muscle pain (applied externally), and is also used as a massage oil.

3.  Yellow birch is used as a source of "Oil of Wintergreen" which is used as a flavoring and/or active ingredient in various medicines.

At Replant.ca Environmental, we include yellow birch trees in some of our species mixes in eastern Canada.  We typically source them from the Scott & Stewart forest nursery in Nova Scotia.  The yellow birch is a fast growing hardwood, and as you'll have learned by now, it's a great species to include in our Canadian forests.  Here is a photo of some of our yellow birch seedlings:

Thanks for reading ...

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca



Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

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