Betula murrayana

B. V. Barnes & Dancik

Canad. J. Bot. 63: 226. 1985

Common names: Murray's birch
Conservation concernEndemic
Treatment appears in FNA Volume 3.

Trees, to 15 m; trunks usually several. Bark of mature trunk and branches dark red to reddish brown, smooth, close; lenticels pale, conspicuous, horizontally expanded. Twigs with taste and odor of wintergreen when crushed, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, covered with small resinous glands. Leaf blade ovate with 7–10 pairs of lateral veins, 5–11 × 3–6 cm, base cuneate, margins sharply and obscurely doubly serrate, apex acute or only slightly acuminate; surfaces abaxially sparsely pubescent to glabrous. Infructescences erect, ovoid, 2–4 × 1.5–3 cm, remaining intact for a period after release of fruits in late fall; scales sparsely pubescent to glabrous, lobes ascending, branching at middle, slightly unequal in length. Samaras with wings narrower than body, broadest near summit, not extended beyond body apically. 2n = 112.

Phenology: Flowering late spring.
Habitat: Wet, swampy forests containing Betula pumila
Elevation: 0–300 m


Of conservation concern.

Betula murrayana is an octoploid derivative of Betula × purpusii (= B. alleghaniensis Britton × B. pumila Linnaeus) (B. V. Barnes and B. P. Dancik 1985). It is intermediate between B. alleghaniensis and B. pumila in most vegetative features, but in characters such as leaf size, it approaches B. alleghaniensis.

Selected References


Lower Taxa