Talking Trees with Davey Tree
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Talking Trees with Davey Tree
River Birch: The Beautiful East Coast Tree
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Lou Meyer, arborist from Davey's Mid-Atlantic region, continues our species series with the beautiful river birch tree. In this episode, Lou and host Doug Oster talk about the river birch's characteristics, ecological value, cultural and medicinal uses and more.
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Welcome to the Deby Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oester. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer. Well, he's back with us again, Lou Meyer. It's part of our occasional series on different species of trees. Lou's an arborist for the Davy Tree Expert Company, works out of Baltimore, and we've been talking about all sorts of different cool trees. And I know for a fact that Lou loves the river birch, right?
SPEAKER_01That's right. The Betula Nigra, one of my favorite. It's just a beautiful tree. I would say it's a little overused in the landscape. If someone said that I would agree with it, let's let's say that. But man, it's it's a gorgeous one.
SPEAKER_00Well, first question is when I hear
Lives in both wet and dry conditions
SPEAKER_00river birch, I'm thinking, does it need to be by the river? Does it need wet feet?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it can survive with wet feet. So this is one of the few that do fine in moisture. So if you have a wet spot in your yard, you're very limited to what you can plant there, a river birch does just fine. And it does a great job of soaking up water. So if you have a spot that's always wet that you want to dry out quicker, river birch is a great option for that area. But they can live in um drought areas as well, especially with some of the cultivars. The Duraheat cultivar is the most used cultivar out there. Um, not only does it do okay with drought conditions, it's also resistant
Bronze birch borer and drought
SPEAKER_01to the bronze birch boar. The bronze birch boar is a species, uh I don't say a killer, but it's it hits them pretty hard. Mainly uh European and Asian birches that we have in our landscapes, the the river birch itself is more resistant to the bronze birch boar, and the Duraheat cultivar of river birch is very resistant to it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm gonna go back uh to ancient history of the drought of 1988. And back then I didn't know the effect of a drought on a tree, and it wasn't until I started doing this podcast talking to scientists from Davy that go back to that era that I found out why we were losing so many birches to borers, and it was due to that the the worst drought we've we've had in that was you know 30 years. Uh that was a bad one, and that really affected the uh river birches and made them easier for the borer to do its work. The tree was weakened, and the borers were we were losing birches like crazy for three years, three seasons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's how most pests work is that you know the bug itself doesn't always kill the tree. It's when you get pre-existing conditions like a drought or the flip side. Here in Maryland, uh in this in the mid-Atlantic region in 2018, we had record rainfall, and a lot of the oak failure in the mid-Atlantic, we can tie back to that weather event that really did a number on them. When they had saturated soils for you know six months in the summer, uh it it really zapped them. And so other pests have come in and have started killing these trees off, and uh yeah, that's how it works.
SPEAKER_00Good reminder that uh anything that you're planting, mother nature's in charge, and there's some things we just don't have control over, and and that's one of the I guess good things and bad things about uh being a plant person.
SPEAKER_01It's absolutely true.
SPEAKER_00A birch is a beautiful tree, though. Everybody you you know what it is when you see it. It's one of those trees where you I don't think you need to do a lot of ID work on.
SPEAKER_01No,
River birch characteristics
SPEAKER_01typically when we see them in the landscape, so just to give you an idea, they're um you know, they're a deciduous tree, they're 80 to 100 feet tall. That's a super tall tree, but uh usually they're in that you know 40 to 60 foot range, uh, two to five foot diameter. Now I say that rarely do you see a single-stemmed river birch, occasionally, they're really cool when you do, but usually it's three or four or five stems coming out from the base, and they're supposed to grow that way. A lot of trees, when you see multiple stems come from the base, not good. That's usually where they fail. River birches, that's how they that's how they live, so it's okay. Uh, real papery bark, so the bark can peel off. It's what we call exfoliating bark. Um, you and I have talked about four-season trees before, trees that have uh aesthetic beauty in the winter. I like to think that all trees are beautiful in the winter, uh, but it is true that some are more than others, and this is one of them because of that bark. You see it in the winter, and it's peeling bark, and it's just it's beautiful. The bark falls off. Interestingly, you can use that bark as kindling or fire starter if you're ever caught out in nature and you need a uh fire starter on the quick. Um, so good survivalist skill there. Now, once they get older, the mature bark is less flaky and kind of brown, but that's I mean, that's an old tree, that's a 60, 70-year-old river birch. Anything that younger age has that real pretty papery bark coming out of it. Um, as a birch, it does have uh, I mean, all trees have sap. Uh, birch beer is a thing that you could drink, kind of like root beer. Um and I think they make that with the roots of the tree, but they do produce a sap. Uh, the name betula. So, again, the the Latin name for river birch is betula nigra. Uh nigra is river. Betula comes from the Gaulish word of betu. So the Gauls lived around the time of the Romans, they were north of the Romans. Um, and betu from them is bitumen or asphalt. And so the Gauls would extract the tar from the birches. They'd they'd use that sap to make uh to make a type of asphalt for the roads. Now they didn't have roads they were driving cars on, they were pretty pretty rudimentary roads, but that's what I'm told, anyways. So uh bet you comes from that. Uh the tree is also known as a black birch or a water birch, depending on where you are in the United States, but river birch is pretty well known. Uh it ranges in the eastern U.S. from New Hampshire down to North Florida, and it goes out west to southern Minnesota and Texas, so pretty good range of the eastern United States. Uh, it's part of the Betulaceae family, so birches or alders. So other uh trees related to the river birch are hazelnuts and hornbeams. The uh, like I said, the tree is a deciduous tree, so it loses its leaves in the winter. Uh bark is very distinct. The leaves, they're alternate, and they're serrates, so they're they're serrated means that they're like uh knives, like a serrated knife. So they're they're not sharp, they're not going to cut your finger, but they look like a knife blade. Um, really pretty. Dark green upperside with yellow-green bottoms. They're fairly small leaves, um, so they're not giant like a sycamore leaf, but they're really pretty. They have a yellow fall color, not a very substantial color. So you know, you don't plant this for the fall interest, but uh, but they definitely have a place in the landscape.
SPEAKER_00Is this description of it being a wispy tree? Is that
Whispy branches and bark
SPEAKER_00accurate?
SPEAKER_01I would call it wispy, yeah. The branches, so if you have a river birch in your yard, you're gonna be picking up a lot of very small branches. They rarely drop large branches, but they drop a lot of little wispy branches, yes. Very flexible, uh, very fibrous tree. Uh so uh, and they drop these tiny little branches all the way. They're long, they're you know, two to three foot branches, but they're only a half inch thick at the most. So and they're not very like I said, they're not very tall trees. So it's not like a 130-foot oak tree dropping a half inch, three-foot-long branch that's gonna do some damage. These these, because they're so bendy, they're very lightweight, they don't break things underneath them. Uh, but yeah, they are wispy. That's a very good way to describe it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I've seen at a garden, and I can't remember which garden, I think it's Stan Hewitt in Akron, Ohio, that they have a long alley of birches and they kind of start to touch at the top. Uh it's it's you know, that beautiful white bark. Uh it's just stunning. I think that's where I saw it. And like I said, when you see a birch, you know what it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're pretty distinct that way. Um, the National Champion is in James City, Virginia. It's a 76-inch DBH. Now it's a multi-stem, so I I don't know how they measured that. I know it's a big tree, I've seen pictures, it's pretty cool. Interestingly, this one usually the tree is taller than it's wide. This is an inverse, which is not surprising for a river birch. It's a 60 the the national champ, 65 feet tall with a 105-foot spread, so it's wider than it is tall. Again, it's a multi-stem, so these stems are coming out at an angle and they're just reaching to the side instead of straight up. So that's not surprising. Um, but that's a that's a big tree.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's interesting when you say that the
Multi-stemmed growth habit
SPEAKER_00multi-stemmed uh growth habit of the tree because during that drought or the in the preceding years after it, it was the big center part of the tree that took the worst, it seemed, and you could remove that center part, and the smaller ones would take over. They they weren't killed. So I just think that's an interesting way that it grows like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really is. Um the
Flowers and wildlife
SPEAKER_01flowers of this tree, they're they're capkins, so they're kind of long skinny flowers. Uh, really pretty, they do produce a lot of pollen. So during the pollen season, if you're allergic to pollen, they're not great for that. But um during that time, there's so much else going on that removing this tree from your yard for the pollen is not gonna change anything, so I wouldn't be worried about that. But the flowers are yellow, they're about two inches long, and uh they're visible if you look up into the tree. The uh you know different important things of this tree. Uh, if you are a hunter, especially if you like to hunt fowl, uh, so birds, uh waterfowl and turkeys use this tree for shelter and food. So if you're a turkey hunter, uh you find a standard river birches. I'm not gonna say there's a good chance there's a turkey underneath, but they like them. So they're usually hanging around there. It's also the host for over 15 moth species. So a really important tree for our pollinators, not for the pollen itself, but for being a host tree for those pollinators. Uh, and then I mentioned the sap earlier. Uh, Native Americans would use the sap as a sweetener, kind of like maple syrup. Uh, so they would tap these trees, and you can tap these trees to pull the uh syrup out. Most trees you can actually. So, you know, sugar maples are the most efficient producers of sugary sap, which is why we make maple syrup out of them. But one of my favorite uh syrups I ever had was actually a uh walnut syrup. Someone had tapped a walnut tree, pulled the sap out of it, and boiled it. I was actually at a nature center in Baltimore that had it, and it was delicious.
SPEAKER_00Well, we should add that to our list of things. We want to do an episode all about things you can eat from a tree. If you could ever find any walnut uh syrup, that would be another fun one.
SPEAKER_01That's a good idea. I'll start scouring for different types of tree syrups out there for that episode.
SPEAKER_00When you say catkin,
Catkins
SPEAKER_00I know what it looks like, but kind of explain what a catkin is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so a catkin is a type of flower, but it's not like a tulip that you would see in your garden or a rose flower or something else. A catkin's longer, tubular and um not showy like a flower. It this one happens to be yellow, uh almost almost like a cigar shape, uh smaller though, so tubular like a cigar shape. Uh, there are a couple different trees that have catkins as flowers. So, as far as landscapes go, we
Cultivars and soil acidity
SPEAKER_01talked about this a little earlier. There are a lot of different cultivars out there. The Duraheat is the most popular one. Um, they're pollution-tolerant trees, so they're a really good uh city tree. As a matter of fact, in 2002, the heritage cultivar was chosen by the Society of Municipal Arborists, which that society is now called the Urban Community Forestry Society, but it's the folks who take care of city trees. Uh, that that society chose the heritage cultivar as their tree of the year in 2002. This tree can also tolerate very acidic soil as low as a two on the pH scale. So if we go back to high school uh chemistry again, the pH scale goes from zero to fourteen, with seven being dead middle. That's neutral. Anything above seven is uh it's not acidic, it's alkaline, and anything below seven is acidic. Too much in either way, and you've got issues. Uh, but these things can grow as low as a pH of two, three, uh, so super low. So these are great for strip mine reclamation sites and other soil cleanup sites that are real high in soil acidity. Um,
Cultural and medicinal uses
SPEAKER_01some medicinal uses, some cultural uses of this tree. We like to talk about that. Um the uh Native Americans would chew the leaves or make a tea, and it was an anti-diarrheal, helps out with uh cold, so it's a cold remedy, it's a urinary aid and a gastrointestinal aid, so all sorts of good things there. Again, I always start with this disclaimer we don't recommend eating any wild trees or making these things, but they are historical, so we're gonna mention them. Um, and then as uh a craft product, the wood itself is pretty good for being carved into bowls and other tools. You don't really make a lot of furniture with it, but for tools and small crafts, it's pretty cool. Um and then the bark, you can peel the bark in certain ways to use it for making baskets and uh other things. Um and then the the bark itself also has antifungal properties. So uh, you know, they used to line baskets with it and other bins that they didn't want pests or uh or fungi getting into. So they're good uses for the tree. Do people often
Beech vs. birch
SPEAKER_01confuse birch and beech? By name, yes, and beeches also have small serrate leaves, so I can see that. The the difference in bark, though, couldn't be more uh visible though. The beech has very smooth bark, the birch has that flaky bark, so very different that way. But yeah, if you were to hold up a branch of just birches and a river birch and a branch of just a beech tree, I could definitely see some folks going, yeah, they're very similar.
SPEAKER_00I think just the name because the name is similar, and and sometimes I hear people talk about a tree, and I'm like, that's not a beech.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, we do get that a lot. Uh, you know, I have people say, Oh, my birch tree, and you look at it and go, that's a beech tree. But um, that's just a simple correction.
SPEAKER_00Well, this has been a lot of fun, this series on species. How many do you think we've done so far? Probably nine or ten, I think, and we just have hundreds more to go, Doug.
SPEAKER_01That's what I was gonna say. How long can we continue? Hundreds, huh? I mean, right now we're just focusing on North America, but we could do all sorts of exotic ones.
SPEAKER_00That sounds good. So, on our list for upcoming trees that we were worth thinking about a catalpa, um, Osage Orange. But it'd be nice to hear from the listeners if they had a tree they wanted to hear about, too. That'd be kind of cool.
SPEAKER_01I would like nothing more than to have people write in to podcasts at dvy.com and tell us what you want to hear about.
SPEAKER_00That would be awesome. As always, Lou. Appreciate your time. Great to talk to you and wonderful information as always. Thank you, Doug. Great chatting with you. Well, you heard it from the man himself. He wants to hear what species we should be talking about in the show. A couple different ways to reach us. You can send us an email to podcast at Deby.com. That's P-O-D, C-A-S-T-S-T-D-A-B-E-Y.com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. Your ideas might be on a future show. I'd love to hear from you. And I want you to tune in every Thursday to this Talking Trees podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. As always, I would love for you to subscribe so you won't miss a show. And as always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees Podcast Trees are the answer.