Betula lenta known as black, cherry, spice, or sweet birch is a tree native to eastern North America including Connecticut. It is valued for its wood which resembles mahogany. This tree was also the only source of wintergreen oil before synthetic oils were produced. Native American communities used this tree for practical as well as medicinal purposes.
About Black Birch
Native to North America, this tree is most abundant in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania; and is dominant in the hardwood forests of Appalachia. It is found in cool forests and moist ravines. The trunk of a black birch tree is dark brown to greyish in color and unlike other birches, it can develop hard scaly plates. Young trees are reddish brown and smooth with horizontal lines or lenticels and older trees develop scaly plates revealing rough dark brown patterns. The inner bark of the black birch has a strong wintergreen scent. The leaves are dark, shiny, and serrated in the summer and bright golden yellow in the fall. The branches are thin and dark red/brown in color and hairless. When twigs are broken they have a strong wintergreen aroma. Spurs or staminate catkins form in late summer or autumn and form pinecones that are dark green in the spring and brown in the late summer. They fall from mid.-September through November and germinate in the spring. Seed production occurs in trees that are between 40 and 200 years old.
Medicinal and Practical Uses
Black birch also known as sweet birch is named for the sweet sap from this tree used by Native Americans. Birch sap was collected and boiled into syrup just like maple syrup. However, birch syrup is low in sugar and does not have the sweet taste of maple syrup. It can be drunk without any preparation and is said to taste like sweet fragrant water. Tea was made from twigs, and the twigs and buds were chewed for their flavor which is similar to root beer. The Ojibwa use the bark to build dwellings and lodges, they also used the bark to make canoes. Many communities used the bark to make storage containers, sap dishes, baskets, buckets, dishes, and trays.
The Chippewa made medicine from Black birch bark to treat stomach pain, pulmonary troubles, and pneumonia. The Algonquin among many other Native Communities used an infusion of this plant for many medicinal purposes from treating colds and dysentery to stomach pains. The Cherokee chewed the leaves to treat dysentery and drank tea made from the bark to treat colds and diarrhea. The Iroquois made a compound infusion of this drug to treat colds and fevers. They also made a compound decoction for women who have had gonorrhea and are pregnant. The Iroquois and others made tea and drank it as a stimulant. The Mohegans made a spring tonic from the inner bark and also used it as a stimulant.
Did You Know...
Ice damage usually causes the death of the black birch by making the tree more susceptible to wood-decaying organisms.
The hard, heavy lumber and veneer of bark are used commercially to make furniture, cabinets, boxes, woodenware, and handles.
Historically, this tree was used as an inexpensive substitute for mahogany.
Black birch was also used to produce a variety of paper products.
The oldest black birch that has been confirmed is 368 years old.
Birch beer was made by boiling the sap down and adding honey to it and then fermenting it.
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