page_title: Betula pendula
section_title: Uses
hierarchical_section_title: Betula pendula / Uses
context_page_description: 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 is a medium-sized deciduous tree that owes its common name to the white peeling bark on the trunk. The twigs are slender and often pendulous and the leaves are roughly triangular with doubly serrate margins and turn yellow in autumn before they fall. The flowers are catkins and the light, winged seeds get widely scattered by the wind. The silver birch is a hardy tree, a pioneer species, and one of the first trees to appear on bare or fire-swept land.
context_section_description: The silver birch is Finland's national tree. Leafy, fragrant boughs of silver birch (called vihta or vasta) are used to gently beat oneself in the Finnish sauna culture. Silver birch is often planted in parks and gardens, grown for its white bark and gracefully drooping shoots, sometimes even in warmer-than-optimum places such as Los Angeles and Sydney.  In Scandinavia and other regions of northern Europe, it is grown for forest products such as lumber and pulp, as well as for aesthetic purposes and ecosystem services.  It is sometimes used as a pioneer and nurse tree elsewhere.
  Silver birch wood is pale in colour with no distinct heartwood and is used in making furniture, plywood, veneers, parquet blocks, skis, and kitchen utensils, and in turnery. It makes a good firewood, but is quickly consumed by the flames. Slabs of bark are used for making roof shingles and strips are used for handicrafts such as wooden footwear and small containers. Historically, the bark was used for tanning. Bark can be heated and the resin collected; the resin is an excellent waterproof glue and useful for starting fires. The thin sheets of bark that peel off young wood contain a waxy resin and are easy to ignite even when wet. The dead twigs are also useful as kindling for outdoor fires. The removal of bark was at one time so widespread that Carl Linnaeus expressed his concern for the survival of the woodlands.
  Birch brushwood is used for racecourse jumps and besom brooms. In the spring, large quantities of sap rise up the trunk and this can be tapped. It contains around 1% sugars and can be used in a similar way to maple syrup, being drunk fresh, concentrated by evaporation, or fermented into a "wine".
caption: A pair of Finnish traditional shoes woven from strips of birch bark
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