Betula Pendula
Betula pendula, commonly known as silver birch, warty birch, European white birch, or East Asian white birch, is a species of tree in the family Betulaceae, native to Europe and parts of Asia, though in southern Europe, it is only found at higher altitudes. Its range extends into Siberia, China, and southwest Asia in the mountains of northern Turkey, the Caucasus, and northern Iran. It has been introduced into North America, where it is known as the European white birch, and is considered invasive in some states in the United States and parts of Canada. The tree can also be found in more temperate regions of Australia.
The silver birch typically reaches 15 to 25 m tall with a slender trunk usually under 40 cm diameter.
The leaves have short, slender stalks and are 3 to 7 cm long, triangular with broad, untoothed, wedge-shaped bases, slender pointed tips, and coarsely double-toothed, serrated margins. They are sticky with resin at first, but this dries as they age, leaving small, white scales. The foliage is a pale to medium green and turns yellow early in the autumn before the leaves fall. In midsummer, the female catkins mature and the male catkins expand and release pollen, and wind pollination takes place. The small, 1- to 2-mm winged seeds ripen in late summer on pendulous, cylindrical catkins 2 to 4 cm long and 7 mm broad. The seeds are very numerous and are separated by scales, and when ripe, the whole catkin disintegrates and the seeds are spread widely by the wind.