Paper Birch
Betula papyrifera · Betulaceae · Deciduous · also called white birch, canoe birch
Paper birch is the white-barked tree of northern woods, and its peeling papery bark makes it one of the few trees anyone can name from a car. Do not peel bark from a living tree — the wound does not heal and stays black permanently.
Quick facts
- Arrangement
- alternate
- Leaf
- Oval leaves with a pointed tip and doubly toothed edges — large teeth with smaller teeth between them.
- Bark
- Chalky white, peeling in horizontal papery sheets and marked with dark horizontal lenticels.
- Fruit
- Slender hanging catkins that break apart into tiny winged seeds in autumn.
- Height
- 40–70 ft
How to confirm it
- Chalky white bark peeling in horizontal papery strips.
- Dark horizontal lenticel lines across the bark.
- Doubly toothed leaf edges.
- Often growing in clumps of several trunks from one base.
What it is confused with
One observation settles each of these.
Grey birch bark does not peel readily and has distinct black triangular patches below each branch.
Aspen bark is smooth greenish-white and does not peel, and its flattened leaf stalks make the leaves tremble.
Where it grows
Northern North America, from Alaska across Canada into the northern United States.
Start here: opposite or alternate?
Look at where the leaves join the twig. Are they in matched pairs directly across from each other, or staggered one after another? The vast majority of trees are alternate, so finding an opposite tree removes almost everything else in one step.
In North America, opposite-leaved trees are remembered as MAD Cap Horse: Maple, Ash, Dogwood, Caprifoliaceae (viburnums and elders), and Horse chestnut. That is very nearly the whole list.
Check partway along a healthy twig rather than at the tip, where crowding can make alternate leaves look paired. And check more than one twig.