Mapping Paper Birch Species
With the leaves dropping fast, the intricate peeling bark of birch trees becomes more noticeable. Many people don't realize that we have two types of paper birch in Vermont, Paper or White Birch (Betula papyrifera) and Heart-leaved Paper Birch (B. cordifolia), once considered a variety of Paper Birch. As its name suggests, Heart-leaved Paper Birch has distinctive heart-shaped, many-veined leaves, a pinkish bark, and is restricted to higher elevations. We actually don't have good data on the range of these two species in Vermont. How low in elevation does heart-leaved go? How high does paper birch climb into the mountains? Do they overlap widely in some areas? What will happen with climate change? Observers adding records to iNaturalist Vermont, a project of the Vermont Atlas of Life, are helping map each species. We hope you will add your observation too!
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Fun! It's worth noting that B. cordifolia is currently still tracked as a subspecies of B. papyrifera on iNat, so when you pull up a map of the latter you get the former too. Does that make sense? Hmm... anyway, I think a decision was made to keep it that way for now but I'm not sure. I kind of like that because sometimes I can't tell them apart when I don't see the pink bark, especially this time of year. Anyhow it will be neat to see what mapping it on iNat turns up.
Good point Charlie and one I failed to note when I made a map comparing the two!
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