Sweet birch (Betula lenta): 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 lenta L., birch family
Other names	Black birch and cherry birch (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada and in the lower 48 states
Size, Silvics	On the very best sites 21 to 24 m (70 to 80 ft) tall and 61 to 152 cm (24 to 60 in) in diameter; in most areas a medium-size tree 15 to 18 m (50 to 60 ft) tall and 61 cm (24 in) or less across; one of the largest on record is 147 cm (58 in) in diameter and 21 m (70 ft) tall
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	65 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 2, 1990) calls sweet birch primarily a tree of the northeastern United States. It records a range from southern Maine westward in southern Quebec, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and southeastern Ontario to eastern Ohio, and south in Pennsylvania through the Appalachian Mountains to northern Alabama and Georgia. Precipitation in the range averages about 1,140 mm (45 in) a year, with snowfall of 200 to 250 cm (80 to 100 in) a year in the north, and the average annual temperature is about 7 degrees Celsius (45 degrees Fahrenheit) in the north and about 13 degrees Celsius (56 degrees Fahrenheit) in the southern Appalachians.

The handbook says the common name comes from the wintergreen aroma of crushed leaves and broken twigs, that the species was at one time the only source of oil of wintergreen, and that the specific name lenta refers to the tough yet flexible twigs.

Flowers and growth

Silvics describes the flowers as monoecious and borne in catkins, with the male catkins formed in late summer or autumn and the female catkins appearing with the leaves on short spur-like branches. Flowers open in April and May, and seeds ripen from about mid-August through mid-September in erect strobili. The handbook says saplings grow relatively rapidly, reaching 1.8 m (6 ft) by age 12 in northwestern Pennsylvania and 14 m (46 ft) tall and 10 cm (4 in) in diameter by age 20 in western Pennsylvania and central West Virginia. In a study of virgin hemlock-hardwood stands, understory sweet birch saplings grew about twice as fast as hemlock, beech, sugar maple and red maple. On average sites in Pennsylvania and New York it gives diameters of about 10 cm (4 in) by age 20, 18 cm (7 in) by age 40 and 25 cm (10 in) by age 80. It lists the rooting habit as having no information available.

Wood

Silvics says the wood darkens when exposed to air to a colour resembling mahogany and was once used as an inexpensive substitute for the more valued tropical wood, and that sweet birch wood is quite similar to yellow birch, with lumber and veneer of the two often not separated in the market. The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says sweet birch has light-coloured sapwood and dark brown heartwood tinged with red, and that for yellow and sweet birch the wood is heavy, hard and strong, with good shock-resisting ability and a fine, uniform texture; it adds that birch shrinks considerably during drying. Silvics lists furniture, cabinets, boxes, woodenware, handles and millwork, paper pulp, and commercial birch oil from the bark, whose use it says has declined with synthetic products.

Wood Handbook Table 5-3b	Specific gravity	Modulus of rupture (lbf per square inch)	Side hardness (lbf)
Green	0.60	9,400	970
At 12% moisture content	0.65	16,900	1,470

The Wood Handbook states that specific gravity is based on oven-dry weight and the volume when green or at 12% moisture content. The green weight of the wood without bark is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Diseases, insects and damage the handbook names

Silvics (1990) names these agents by the names it used.

Fungi on living trees. The handbook says several fungi attack living sweet birch and stems frequently become highly defective at an early age; in unmanaged sawtimber stands in the Pennsylvania anthracite region cull exceeded 20 percent of the cubic-foot volume. It names white trunk rot (Phellinus igniarius), yellow cap fungus (Pholiota limonella) and Nectria canker (Nectria galligena) as the most important, and calls sweet birch one of the most susceptible species to Nectria canker, with bole cankers more serious than branch cankers because they reduce merchantable volume and raise susceptibility to stem breakage.
Glaze storms. In northwestern Pennsylvania glaze storms caused appreciable crown damage, although the handbook rates the species intermediate to fairly resistant to glaze compared with other northern hardwoods. It adds that glaze may contribute to the decline and death of yellow and sweet birches by letting decay organisms enter.
Fire. Sweet birch is easily damaged by ground fires because it has extremely thin bark, and even light scorching at the base lowers its resistance to diseases and to insects such as the ambrosia beetle (Xyloterinus politus).
Leaf-feeding insects. Birch tubemaker, birch skeletonizer, oriental moth, gypsy moth and dusky birch sawfly occasionally infest it. The gypsy moth is the same insect as the spongy moth, covered in the spongy moth page.
Weather. The handbook says sweet birch does not seem very susceptible to winter killing and is intermediate in drought resistance, with a 1930 drought study in central Pennsylvania recording a 36 percent loss of basal area for sweet birch, 11 percent for sugar maple, 50 percent for red maple and 15 percent for white ash.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States and the Canada reporting page give the offices that take sightings of regulated pests. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.