The bark of a birch is blacker. Birch bark and cedar from the Siberian bowels
Leaves and bark.
One of the most thermophilic types of birches. It grows quickly, especially when young, but is short-lived. Photophilous.
Prefers damp sandy soils, undemanding to fertility. Grows along river valleys, on damp alluvial soils and swamps, usually mixed with western plane tree (Platanus occidentalis), elms (Ulmus), maples (Acer), willows (Salix) and poplars (Populus)
Botanical description
Freeman's maple, a hybrid of red maple and silver maple, can still outperform red maple as an urban tree and just as rustic. There are several varieties including Autumn Blaze, 15m x 9m, very red in autumn. Thornless Honey Locust: A tree with an open and irregular crown. The leaves are made up of leaflets that are so small and decompose so quickly that you don't even need to pick them up in the fall. The ends of the branches often freeze in winter, but this does not affect its appearance. Look for 'Moraine' and 'Skyline' species or cultivars because many other honey locusts are too small to make good tree shadows.
deciduous tree small size 25-30 m high and trunk diameter up to 1.5 m. The crown is openwork, ovoid. The bark happens different color, usually from dark gray-brown to pink-brown, thick-scaly, rarely smooth, creamy-pink, exfoliating in the form of paper-like layers; silver-gray on young branches.
The leaf arrangement is alternate. The leaves are ovate-rhombic or oval, 5-12 cm long, 4-9 cm wide, broadly wedge-shaped at the base, sharp or obtuse at the apex, doubly lobed-toothed along the edge, dark green above, whitish or grayish below, on pubescent petioles 6-16 mm long. Leaves turn dark yellow in autumn.
Pistillate catkins are erect, oblong-cylindrical, 2.5-3.5 cm long, on a stem 2.5-5 mm long. Bracts pubescent, 6-7 mm long, with linear-oblong, almost equal lobes directed upwards.
Nutlets are broadly ovoid, about 3 mm long and wide, pubescent in the upper half. Wings are equal in width to half of the nutlet or slightly larger. Weight of 1000 seeds 1.2 g; in 1 kg 850 thousand seeds.
Seeds, unlike other birches, ripen in late spring.
Significance and application
Phellodendron of Love: Little known, but very beautiful and with little to no cultural issues. In spring, the Siberian pear is covered with white flowers. Siberian pear: quite a big tree, which has nothing to do with its little cousins: crabapple, plum tree, cherry tree, etc. it is also essentially immune to most diseases and insects that affect fruit trees. Abundant white flowers in spring, but its tiny fruits, only present when there are 2 different clones in the area, are not attractive to humans, although they feed on birds and small animals.
Since the natural environment of the tree is moist soil - it grows on a high bank, and its bark is significantly different from other types of birches - this allows it to be used as a landscape tree. A number of cultivated varieties with whiter bark than the wild species are selected for landscaping gardens.
Varieties such as 'Heritage' and 'Dura Heat' are known to be resistant from white-barked birches to Agrilus anxius in the warm southeastern United States.
‘Heritage’ - a tree with a wide pyramidal crown, more powerful than the wild form. Branches and trunk with heavily flaky bark, the layers of which are painted in cream, orange, lilac and gray tones(light colors predominate).
‘Heritage’ (‘Little King’) is a compact shrub up to 3.5 m tall with a dense oval crown. The bark is creamy, orange, white. Leaves are copper in autumn. It tolerates waterlogging, but grows better in normal conditions.
The Indians made sweets by evaporating the sap of this birch, similar to maple syrup, and its inner bark as food in survival conditions. It is too twisted and knotted to be of any value as a building tree.
The wood is heavy, strong, brown.
In the USA, it is bred mainly in areas where it occurs wildly and only slightly further north; used for street plantings and plantings along the edges of water bodies. It has been introduced in England since 1736. In the USSR, it is not very common in culture.
Beautiful autumn color too. Beautiful black birch. Heritage. Birches: Most of them are very beautiful, but short-lived. Black birch, and especially the Heritage variety, with its bark that peels off so gracefully, is the exception to the rule: it lives for a long time and little susceptible to insects and diseases. zone.
Carriers, walnut trees, chestnuts: they make a lot of beautiful trees, but they big fruits can be cumbersome. Moreover, walnuts. Catalpa: This tree survives in a cold region, sometimes for some nurseries to give it a zone 4, but periodically suffers from severe frostbite and often grows erratically as a result. However, it is an excellent choice in zones 6 and above.
Birch is one of the main images of folk art. In songs, fairy tales, legends, birch is a symbol of spring and the Motherland. The favorite tree was endowed with the most affectionate epithets. She was called slender, curly, thin, white, fragrant, cheerful. There are countless sayings, proverbs, riddles associated with birch:The birch is not a threat - where it stands, it makes noise there. Bela birch bark - yes black tar. Green, not a meadow, white, not snow, curly, not a head. V folk omens birch is closely related to agriculture: A lot of juice flows from a birch - by a rainy summer. If the birch leaves before the alder, the summer will be dry, if the alder is wet in advance.
Ash: The arrival of the Emerald Ash, the fastest growing Asian petrel in Europe and North America, put a brake on interest in this beautiful tree. Elm: The American Elm is regularly the victim of Dutch Elm disease, which is difficult and expensive to fight. There are, however, a few elms, including hybrids, that are slightly more majestic than the American elm and show good resistance to this disease. Before buying an elm, always ask if it is a disease-resistant variety.
His plantation is completely unacceptable. Tillel: A tree with a strong chest and heart-shaped leaves. Leaves with small leaves offer several interesting cultivars. For many gardeners, this is a good choice, linden is not the best choice if you have Japanese beetles in your area because this is one of their favorites!
Folk wisdom has long been able to appreciate the wonderful healing properties birch. Already in the herbalists of the XVII-VII centuries. you can find instructions on how to use birch leaves and buds, birch bark, called birch bark, and birch sap. Modern medicine has also recognized the wide healing possibilities of birch.
Of the 120 birch species found on Earth, about 40 species grow in Russia. The most common is the warty birch (drooping birch), reaching a height of 20 meters, whose age does not exceed 120 years.
Big trees to avoid at all costs. Poplars, Willows, Silver Maple: The roots of these fast growing trees are extremely invasive and often cause damage to domestic and municipal pipes. Their shedding or seeding is also very invasive. Most municipalities protect the planting of these trees on their territory.
And here's a nice skewer of trees to plant now. Because after all, it will take several years before you can enjoy being in your backyard! V last years there has been an increase in birch borer in urban areas, which is a small insect that can attack all types of birch. Stressed, weakened, or older trees are more vulnerable, and the main damage is caused by grubs that tunnel under the bark, obstructing the flow of sap.
Outside, the bark covers the birch with a continuous cover. Birch bark consists of many thin elastic, smooth, durable layers that are easily separated from each other, impervious to moisture and air and practically resistant to decay. Every year these layers grow, and the bark becomes thicker. By the number of thin layers, as well as by the growth rings of wood, one can determine the age of the tree. The outer layers of the warty birch are usually white in color and differ only in shades of color. The inner layers facing the bast come in various shades, from yellow to dark brown. It is these inner layers of birch bark, as the most durable, beautiful, used by craftsmen in the manufacture of products such as front side. The outer, scaly layers are called wrong side, and they have no practical value.
A heavily attacked tree may die within the first year of infection or several years after the appearance of the borer. Damage appears as a result of discoloration and premature leaf fall in the crown of the tree, which is then sparse, and blisters can be observed on infected branches and trunks resulting from the action of the trees. larvae under bark. The tunnels dug by the larvae impede the flow of sap and water, leading to drying and death of branches just above the infested parts. As the females lie lower in later years, the larvae cause other parts of the tree to die. Adult feeding results in minor damage to the foliage, depending on the age of the tree, the number of larvae and the location of the galleries, an infected tree may die in the first year or years after emerald. All types of birch, but especially European white birch and its varieties, white birch and birch.
In addition to color, birch bark is given special attractiveness. lentils - small narrow stripes of black or brown. In the summer they are open and gas exchange is carried out through them, sometimes they are called vents. For the winter, the lentils are closed, filled with a special substance.
The best birch bark for all types of products is wide-layered, layered, even, thin with small lenticels, warm and velvety to the touch, stretchable, yellow, golden yellow or yellow-green.
Description and development cycle
Eggs: They are oval, flattened and about 1.5 mm long and 1 mm wide. At first they are creamy white, but after that they become yellowish. Larvae: They are elongated, flattened and 13 to 35 mm long. They are whitish and lack legs. They have two small clip-like tips at the end of the abdomen.
Nymphs: They look like adults, but smaller. First creamy white, they turn green when ripe. Adults: They have an elongated body, a square head, a smooth back and a pointed belly. Their color ranges from olive green to black with bronze reflections.
Thin birch bark occurs in birches aged 20 to 40 years with a smooth, even trunk (diameter more than 150 - 200 mm), without painful thickenings, sagging, knots, cuts, pronounced crusts and mushrooms. Such a birch is more common on upland slopes, in mixed forests with moderate shade. An exception is the case when birch bark is needed for slotted thread. Then they look for young trees no older than 15-16 years old. Sometimes birch bark with a thickness of up to 2 mm or more is required for the manufacture of large products - tuesas, large boxes, etc.
Bivalves overwinter as larvae hidden in the heart of a tree. In the spring, when the sap begins to circulate again, the larvae become active again and tunnel under the bark, where they pupate and become adults. Each adult lives for about three weeks.
Shortly after the adult male emerges, the females lay their eggs in cracks in the bark, usually on sun-exposed parts of trees. The eggs hatch after 2 weeks of incubation and the young larvae will pierce the bark to enter the cambium where they tunnel into winding galleries.
Historical and cultural information
The borer likes to lie on stressed, weakened or old trees. Some types of birch are more susceptible to the borer. Birch is a plant especially valued for its white and showy bark. Resistant to cold, it grows almost everywhere, providing man for thousands of years, through bark, wood, branches and leaves, the basic materials for many useful applications. A waterproof glue was obtained from the bark, for example, from the Neolithic era. For the peoples of Northern Europe, the birch is of great cultural value and is a plant associated with many myths that is highly valued, widely used and praised by many parties.
On the outskirts of the fields, the edges of the forest often grow birches with thick bark. Their birch bark is with long, wide lenticels, smooth, strong, low stretch, yellow, sometimes reddish or even multi-colored: yellow on the north side, reddish on the south. This is a second-rate birch bark. It takes a lot of effort and time to process. Birch bark from birches growing in peat, swampy places or separately on open spaces, - fragile, slightly extensible, with many small and large blackened lentils, thick, spotted, in a scab, with holes from insect passages, one-sided, with thickenings. It's better not to take it.
White or warty birch, hairy or peat bogs are very similar in appearance and wood characteristics. In fact, as a rule, we are talking about birch and birch wood. Rural pioneer plant, birch is colonized as cut and felled trees. Its presence in productive forests is about 0.5%. Due to the increase in demand, this look, which was once considered small in number, is now more and more coming back into fashion. A typical heliophilic species, birch grows rapidly in its early years, reaching a maximum age of only 120 years.
The timing of birch bark harvesting may vary depending on the geographical area, the place where the birch grows, the time of the onset and the nature of spring. Birch bark is usually firmly connected to the bast. late spring with the melting of snow during the period of juicing, you can remove birch bark in small quantities using a specially made tool made of wood, resembling a chisel. At this time, a coating of a dark brown bast layer is observed on the inner layer of birch bark. Such birch bark is often used in products with decoration elements by scraping the bast layer.
Typical broadleaf foliar porosity. Pores are recognized on perfectly smooth cross sections, such as small bright dots. The limits of annual rings are characterized by thin stripes of dark late tree and sometimes visible strips of parenchymal tissue. Color Ivory from yellow to pink-white becomes yellow. Often the surfaces of the head have brownish-pink marrow spots oriented tangentially. On tangential surfaces, they take the form of stripes.
Small portions of enlarged bark can bring Finnish birches to the formation of the so-called marbled birch with a brownish-pink structure. Birch wood is heavy to moderately heavy. It is a particularly durable and resilient wood. All processing, planing, milling, turning, carving, cutting and peeling are well done. Birch also stacks well. Due to the fine-grained surface, only gluing is difficult. The wood dries well, but it tends to sag. Conditions of prolonged humidity lead to the formation of undesirable colors.
In the Republic of Komi in the area of Syktyvkar, the most favorable terms for harvesting birch bark are observed from June 20 to July 10. During this period, birch sap is no longer available. The leaf of the tree is gaining strength, becoming dark green. In stable hot weather, after a cut of birch bark on a tree trunk, it comes off without effort.
During this period, it is necessary to visit the forest more often to determine the descent of birch bark. At the end of the descent period, the birch bark dries to the trunk and the harvesting becomes practically impossible.
For this reason, wood should be dried as quickly as possible. Birch wood can be attacked by insects and fungi. Penetration is medium to good. Birch wood with a wave-like grain is sought for valuable veneers. In the Nordic countries, it is widely used in plywood. It is also valued among light parquet woods. Given the ease with which it is dyed, it is often used in furniture making in a wide variety of hues. Other uses are objects, children's toys, kitchen utensils, lumber, and sculptures.
