Yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis): 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. Another native birch has its own page, paper birch.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Betula alleghaniensis Britton, birch family (Silvics)
Other names	Gray birch, silver birch and swamp birch (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada, in the lower 48 states and in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Largest on record, Silvics	Near Gould City, Michigan: 144 cm (56.7 in) in diameter and 34.7 m (114 ft) tall
Age, Silvics	Commonly more than 300 years old, occasionally more than 366 years; maturity normally reached in 120 to 150 years in unmanaged forests
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	59 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and where it grows

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, 1990) calls yellow birch the most valuable of the native birches and a slow-growing, long-lived tree. It gives a range that starts in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and on Anticosti Island, runs west across southern Ontario to the far southeast of Manitoba, reaches Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and extends east to northern Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and New England. In the Appalachians it runs south to eastern Tennessee and northeastern Georgia. Farther south it grows at higher elevations and in the end is confined to moist gorges above 914 m (3,000 ft). The handbook says the largest concentrations of yellow birch timber are in Quebec, Ontario, Maine, Upper Michigan, New York and New Brunswick, and that 50 percent of the growing stock volume in North America is in Quebec.

Silvics says the tree grows in cool areas with abundant precipitation, best on fertile loams that drain well and on sandy loams that drain moderately well, and that it is often abundant where drainage is restricted since other species compete less there. It is usually found singly or in small pure groups, is present in all stages of forest succession and is a major component of three forest cover types: Hemlock-Yellow Birch, Sugar Maple-Beech-Yellow Birch and Red Spruce-Yellow Birch. It describes the bark as yellowish bronze and exfoliating, and the inner bark as aromatic with a wintergreen flavor.

Catkins, seed and seedbeds

The species is monoecious. The handbook says male catkins form in late summer and stay on the tree over winter, turning purplish yellow and lengthening to 7 to 10 cm (2.8 to 3.9 in) in spring before shedding pollen for 3 to 5 days, while the female catkins appear in late May to early June. The fruit, a winged nutlet, ripens in late August or early September. Normally 40 years is the minimum and 70 years the optimum seed-bearing age, and good seed crops usually come every 2 to 3 years, though the interval varies from 1 to 4 years in northeastern Wisconsin. Seeds are light, average 99,200 per kilogram (45,000 per pound), and have been blown up to 400 m (1,320 ft) over crusted snow. Germination in good seed years averages 20 percent under natural conditions. The handbook says that in undisturbed stands yellow birch can regenerate only on mossy logs, rotten stumps and decayed wood, in cracks in boulders and on windthrown hummocks, since hardwood leaf litter harms its survival elsewhere.

Shade and roots

Silvics classes yellow birch as intermediate in shade tolerance: more tolerant than the other native birches but less than sugar maple, beech and hemlock. It is the major gap-phase component of two forest cover types and cannot regenerate under a closed canopy. The root system is adaptable, well developed and extensive, spreading horizontally through shallow soils or reaching more than 1.5 m (5 ft) deep under favorable conditions, and root grafting is common. The handbook shows a stilt-rooted tree that developed on a rotten stump in an unmanaged Wisconsin stand.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) lists yellow birch with sweet birch and paper birch as the three most important birches for lumber and veneer, and says yellow birch grows principally in the Northeast and Canada. It describes white sapwood and light reddish-brown heartwood and calls the wood of yellow and sweet birch heavy, hard and strong, with good shock-resisting ability. Silvics lists furniture, paneling, plywood, cabinets, boxes, woodenware, handles and interior doors, and says it is one of the principal hardwoods used to distill wood alcohol, charcoal, tar and oils.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity (Table 5-3b)	0.55	0.62
Modulus of rupture, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	8,300	16,600
Side hardness, lbf (Table 5-3b)	780	1,260

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

Damaging agents the handbook names

Silvics calls yellow birch a very sensitive species, more susceptible to injury than its common associates.

Weather, fire and wind. The thin bark is susceptible to fire injury, and light surface fires kill seedlings and saplings outright. The fine branching makes it susceptible to ice and snow loads. It is windfirm on deep, well-drained soils but subject to windthrow on shallow, somewhat poorly drained ones. Winter sunscald, wind-borne salt spray and late spring frost on seedlings are also listed.
Dieback. The handbook describes a birch dieback that caused widespread mortality of yellow and paper birch between 1932 and 1955 in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, with symptoms starting in the upper crown and trees usually killed within 3 to 5 years. It says no single triggering cause has been widely accepted. A localized decline after heavy cutting, called post-logging decadence, is described separately.
Borer. Trees that are weakened are often attacked, and in the end killed, by the bronze birch borer, which the handbook treats as a secondary agent in dieback. See the bronze birch borer page.
Cankers and rots. It calls Nectria galligena the most common and damaging stem disease, causing target-like cankers and twig blight. It names Diaporthe alleghaniensis as the cause of a black canker and shoot blight, and the shoestring fungus (Armillaria) as the most common root and butt decayer. It says discoloration and decay are the main causes of defect and of lost wood quality.

For who takes reports of regulated pests, see reporting a pest in the United States, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate.