The black birch is easily distinguished by the dark color of its bark, which is smooth on young trees and cracks into rough square plates on old trees, but which never peels off in strips. Its gray stems have a sweet, spicy taste, which is also a means of identifying the tree.
The wood is heavy, strong, and hard, and its surface after being polished is like satin. It is much sought after for furniture and is excellent for fuel. An oil made from the wood is used medicinally and as a flavoring extract, and a sweet beer is made by fermenting the sugary sap.
The specific name, lenta (pliant), refers to the flexible stems and branches of this tree. The black birch is found in rich woods throughout the Northeastern States.
Yellow Birch Betula lutea
A beautiful straight tree, 50 to 90 feet high. Distinguished from the black birch by its yellowish or silver-gray bark, which, unlike the brown bark of the black birch rolls back and peels off in thin, filmy strips from the trunk. The bud scales overlap each other. Alternate leaf-scars. Delicate twigs with an aromatic taste, not as sweet as the black birch. The catkins are larger round than those of the black birch.
YELLOW BIRCH
Betula lutea
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This is in every way a worthy sister tree of the black birch, and the rich yellow of the trunk, but partially revealed through the gray, shaggy, outer layers of the bark, is quite as beautiful as the rich red-browns of the black birch bark. Thoreau felt the charm of yellow birches. In his journal, Jan. 4, 1853, he says: “To what I will call Yellow Birch Swamp, E. Hubbard’s in the north part of the town, ... west of the Hunts’ pasture. There are more of these trees in it than anywhere else in the town that I know. How pleasing to stand near a new or rare tree; and few are so handsome as this: singularly allied to the black birch in its sweet checkerberry scent and its form, and to the canoe birch in its peeling or fringed and tasselled bark. The top is brush-like, as in the black birch. The bark an exquisite ... delicate gold color, curled off partly from the trunk with vertical clear or smooth spaces, as if a plane had been passed up the tree. The sight of these trees affects me more than California gold. I measured one five and two-twelfths feet in circumference at six feet from the ground. We have the silver and the golden birch. This is like a fair flaxen-haired sister of the dark complexioned black birch, with golden ringlets. How lustily it takes hold of the swampy soil and braces itself. In the twilight I went through the swamps, and the yellow birches sent forth a yellow gleam which each time made my heart beat faster. Sometimes I was in doubt about a birch whose vest was buttoned, smooth and dark, till I came nearer and saw the yellow gleaming through, or where a button was off.”
The yellow birch is one of the most valuable timber trees of the North. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and is used for making furniture, the hubs of wheels, and boxes. Few hard woods of a light color make as attractive flooring as polished yellow birch.