Birch. The white lady of woods.
The birch is a tree of light: elegant, mysterious, a true lady of the forest.
The birch is a fascinating tree, which has always attracted the attention of us. Its white bark is the special sign we learn when we are children (and we never forget). The birch is a true lady of the forest, thanks to its elegant bearing and its graceful forms: never too high, nor too intrusive. It doesn’t love living alone, and you can easily find it in the the beech or oak forests, and also through the larches and the spruces.
The birch is the tree of the North and it accompanies landscapes from the Arctic Circle to the Italian Apennines. We find it in the illustrations of Russian fairy tales, alongside isbas or tundras with wolves; for the ancient Siberian shamans it was the cosmic tree, the tree of life. It appears among the plants of San Giovanni and the summer solstice, because the crowns of its branches exposed outside the doors protect stables and properties from evil spirits.
It prefers staying cool, andit knows how to play its heart-shaed leaves in the wind. The birch is light and sinuous, but also incredibly resistant: it can endure low temperatures, even below 20° C. The appearance does not deceive you: its wood vibrates and beats like a spoke of the shepherds and it’s used to make strong crosspiece in sledges; its roots are sturdy, able to contain the steep terrain of cliffs and slopes. The birch has also draining and diuretic properties: its leaves, its buds and its bark have been used for years for depurative teas (these rare effects made the tree famous in the past centuries: it was called the “Plant of the kidneys of Europe”).
Mauro Corona defines it “the queen of the woods” and Mario Rigoni Stern, in his Arboreto Selvatico, writed: “I did not understand the beauty of the birches when I played near them, in the spring, when the snow melted, looking up to their celestial branches. And the use of our ancient, that in May showed their love to the girls of the village with birch branches just bloomed, placed in front of the doors of their homes, has been lost with the Mediterranean civilization.”
The birch comes in various species: there is Betula pubescens, pendula and verrucosa; you can find the alba one and the nigra one as well. On the slopes of the Etna Volcano in Sicily there is Betula aetnensis: an endemic, smaller species. In Italy it grows mainly in the Alps and the Apennines: the most majestic birches stand in the skies of Merano, close to the river, and in Burano Island, near the landing stage. Monumental birches are also at Mount Ferro (in the province of La Spezia) and at the Pian delle Betulle, in Alta Valsassina (province of Lecco). At Caldara of Manziana, in the Natural Park of Bracciano, there is a post-glacial relict of these trees, unusually present at these latitudes. Unfortunately, like many beautiful things, the birch does not live much: the average of its life is about 60 years.
Name: various, depending on the species
Family: Betulaceae
Curiosity: from its sweet sap you get, after a special fermentation, a drink called Beer of Birch
Originally published at www.ariles.it on December 3, 2015.
