Description
B. nigra – River Birch – Tropical Birch – Black Birch– This deciduous, conical to spreading tree found by riverbanks in Eastern USA grows 30-60′ feet tall and 40′ feet wide. It has shaggy, red-brown bark, peeling in layers when young, becoming blackish or gray-white and fissured on old trees. It produces diamond to triangular shaped, glossy, irregularly toothed edged, mid to dark green leaves, to 3″ long, glaucous beneath, turn yellow in autumn. In early spring it bears yellow-brown male catkins, to 3″ long. Tolerate hot and dryness.
Grow in moderately fertile, moist
but well drained soil in full sun or light dappled shade, but some adapt to
poorer, shallower, even boggy soil.
zones 4-9
