Sweet Birch is a lovely forest tree native to New England, New York, Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, east Ohio, and down the Appalachians into northern Georgia and Alabama, growing wild in upland mesic (moist) or dry mesic forest, and usually on north or east facing slopes of hills and mountains in acid soils. It grows about 1 foot to 1.5 feet/year and lives about 150 to 200 years. Some large, diverse nurseries grew some in northeast Illinois in the 1980's and probably still do. I saw a few planted in park districts in the Chicago area where the silt-clay loam soils have a pH that is usually about 6.8 to 7.1. I remember seeing the first Sweet Birch tree in a cemetery in Urbana, Illinois during a woody plant class expedition at the University of Illinois with Dr. Michael Dirr, and it looked good being about 30 feet high in full sun and surrounded by lawn, (and the soil must have been a silt-clay loam with a pH about 7.0). When this lovely tree is used in landscapes, it is best not to place it in hot, dry, exposed locations. This is the birch from which birch beer is derived. Its crushed twigs have a wintergreen flavor. The leaves are 2.5 to 5 inches long x 1.3 to 3 inches wide. The strobiles are erect and ovoid and hairless. Its bark begins as thin, smooth, almost black bark or dark red-brown ; then bark becomes gray-brown and still basically smooth; then it becomes brown-gray with scaly plates; no peeling. It develops the best golden autumn color of any birch species, though not much better than the very similar species of the Yellow Birch that has some peeling of its bark. I'd like to see this species used a lot more in landscaping as it is so lovely.

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