Paper birch (Betula papyrifera): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Betula papyrifera Marsh., birch family
Other names	White birch, canoe birch and silver birch (Silvics)
Varieties, Silvics	Typical paper birch plus five intergrading geographical varieties: western, mountain, Kenai, Alaska and northwestern paper birch
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Alaska, Canada, the lower 48 states and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Lifespan, Silvics	Rarely lives more than 140 years; few live longer than 140 to 200 years
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	52 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 2, 1990) says the range of paper birch closely follows the northern limit of tree growth from Newfoundland and Labrador west across the continent into northwest Alaska. From Kodiak Island in Alaska it runs southeast to British Columbia and Washington, then east in the mountains of northeast Oregon, northern Idaho and western Montana, with scattered outliers in the northern Great Plains of Canada, Montana, North Dakota, the Black Hills, Wyoming, Nebraska and the Front Range of Colorado. East of there it follows Minnesota and Iowa through the Great Lakes region into New England, and extends down the Appalachians from central New York to western North Carolina. The handbook calls the species and its varieties the most widely distributed birches in North America, mostly in Canada. The Wood Handbook calls paper birch transcontinental.

Size and age

Silvics describes medium-sized, fast-growing trees that develop best on well-drained sandy loams on cool moist sites and may form nearly pure stands where they pioneer areas disturbed by fire or logging. Young paper birch often reaches 20 cm (8 in) in diameter after 30 years, and the growth rate declines with age until it is almost negligible in old age. Trees in mature stands average 25 to 30 cm (10 to 12 in) in diameter and 21 m (70 ft) tall. On the best sites an occasional old tree may exceed 76 cm (30 in) in diameter and 30 m (100 ft) in height, and trees of the variety cordifolia are recorded as large as 102 cm (40 in). The handbook calls paper birch short lived, with trees maturing in 60 to 70 years, and records several cordifolia trees on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire more than 200 years old, the oldest 225.

Flowers, fruit and roots

The handbook says paper birch flowers from mid-April through early June depending on location, and is monoecious. Male catkins form in late summer at the ends of twigs and grow to 4 to 10 cm (1.5 to 4 in) the following spring, while female catkins are 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) long and cluster two or three on lateral spur shoots. The fruits are winged nutlets 1.5 mm (0.06 in) long, and the seeds ripen from early August until mid-September. The handbook adds that the shape of the bracts of the female catkins is characteristic for the species and that variations help distinguish the varieties.

On roots, Silvics calls paper birch generally shallow rooted, with the bulk of the roots in the top 60 cm (24 in) of soil and no taproots. It says high wind will break the trunk more often than uproot the tree, and that broken stems generally sprout.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) names paper birch with yellow birch and sweet birch as the three species that supply most birch lumber and veneer. It says paper birch is lower in weight, softer and lower in strength than yellow and sweet birch, and that birch shrinks considerably during drying.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity (Table 5-3b)	0.48	0.55
Modulus of rupture, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	6,400	12,300
Side hardness, lbf (Table 5-3b)	560	910
Moisture content of green wood, percent (Table 4-1)	89 heartwood, 72 sapwood	Not applicable

The green weight of the wood is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Pests and diseases the handbook names

Silvics (1990) describes damage from several agents.

Birch dieback. A condition that killed or damaged large percentages of paper birch in the eastern part of the range in the late 1930s and 1940s. The symptoms it lists are dying back of twigs and branches in the crown, loss of vigor, and death over 5 to 6 years, with the trees most often damaged shallow rooted and showing root mortality before crown symptoms. It attributes the root mortality to environmental conditions and says the condition has subsided and is not considered an important threat.
Bronze birch borer. Agrilus anxius, which the handbook calls the most serious insect pest of paper birch and says usually attacks overmature trees or trees in weakened condition.
Defoliators. The most serious it names are the forest tent caterpillar, birch skeletonizer, birch leafminer, birch leaf-mining sawflies, birch casebearer, saddled prominent and the gypsy moth. It says defoliation alone seldom kills otherwise healthy trees but reduces growth and leaves trees open to other agents, particularly the bronze birch borer.
Wood-boring and cambium insects. Cambium miners and ambrosia beetles, which it says cause defects in timber but seldom kill trees.
Decay and cankers. Fungi enter through wounds or branch stubs and cause discoloration and decay, and red heart is called a very common defect in some areas. The principal decay fungi it names are Inonotus obliquus, Phellinus igniarius and Pholiota species. Stem cankers are often caused by Inonotus obliquus and I. glomeratus and by Nectria galligena, and the root-rotting fungus Armillaria mellea is recorded as causing cracks at the base of the stem.
Animals and fire. White-tailed deer, porcupines, moose and hares, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers whose rows of holes the handbook says are an entry for discoloration and decay organisms. In a Maine study 51 percent of paper birch damaged by sapsuckers died. It calls fire both the cause of many paper birch stands and one of the most serious enemies of established stands.

The gypsy moth is the same insect as the spongy moth. The guide on spongy moth rules by country sets out what each agency says, and reporting a pest in the United States gives the office that takes sightings of regulated pests. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate.