Betula pendula |
Betula nana |
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bouleau pleureur, European birch, European weeping birch, European white birch, silver birch, weeping birch |
arctic dwarf birch, bog birch, bouleau nain, dwarf birch |
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Habit | Trees, to 25 m; trunks usually several, crowns spreading. | Shrubs, sprawling, creeping, or upright, to 1 m. | ||||
Bark | of mature trunks and branches creamy to silvery white, smooth, exfoliating as long strands; lenticels dark, horizontally expanded. |
gray to dark brown, smooth, close; lenticels inconspicuous, unexpanded. |
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Branches | pendulous; twigs glabrous, usually dotted with small resinous glands. |
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Twigs | without taste and odor of wintergreen, glabrous to sparsely or moderately pubescent, with or without heavy resinous coating, sometimes covered with warty resinous glands. |
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Leaf | blade broadly ovate to rhombic with 5–18 pairs of lateral veins, 3–7 × 2.5–5 cm, base cuneate, rarely truncate, margins coarsely and sharply doubly serrate, apex acuminate; surfaces abaxially glabrous to sparsely pubescent, covered with minute, resinous glands. |
blade broadly orbiculate or obovate-orbiculate to reniform, with 2–6 pairs of lateral veins, often broader than long, base rounded to nearly cordate, margins deeply crenate, apex rounded; surfaces abaxially glabrous to sparsely or moderately pubescent. |
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Infructescences | erect to nearly pendulous, cylindric, 2–3.5 × 0.6–1 cm, shattering with fruits in fall; scales adaxially sparsely pubescent, lobes diverging at middle, central lobe obtuse, much shorter than lateral lobes, lateral lobes broad, rounded, extended. |
erect, nearly cylindric, shattering with fruits in fall. |
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Samaras | with wings much broader than body, broadest near center, extended beyond body apically. |
with wings much narrower than body, broadest near center, not extended beyond body apically. |
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Staminate | and pistillate catkins produced season before flowering but retained in buds during winter, expanding along with new growth in spring. |
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2n | = 28, 56. |
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Betula pendula |
Betula nana |
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Phenology | Flowering late spring. | |||||
Habitat | Abandoned plantings, roadsides, edges of bogs, waste places | |||||
Elevation | 0–350 m [0–1100 ft] | |||||
Distribution |
CT; MA; NH; NY; OH; PA; VT; WA; BC; MB; ON; Europe; Asia
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AK; AB; BC; MB; NT; SK; YT; Subarctic and arctic of North America; Europe; and Asia
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Discussion | The Eurasian weeping birch (Betula pendula) is extensively cultivated throughout the temperate range of the flora, and it has been known to persist or to become locally naturalized in several areas, particularly in the Northeast. In vegetative features it resembles B. populifolia Marshall, to which it is closely allied; it can easily be distinguished from the latter by its peeling bark, as well as by its mostly pubescent leaves with somewhat shorter, acuminate apices. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Subspecies 3 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 3. | FNA vol. 3. | ||||
Parent taxa | ||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | B. verrucosa | |||||
Name authority | Roth: Tent. Fl. Germ. 1: 405. (1788) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 983. (1753) | ||||
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