Betula cordifoliaRegel

Hearleaf BirchMountain White BirchSpeckled Birch

WFO wfo-0000331884 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Betula cordifolia, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. a Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-25 / obs. 160844342
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Tom Field
fig. b Tom Field, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154687731
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. c Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 100339357
Betula cordifolia, photographed by agbelliveau
fig. d agbelliveau, CC0 1.0 / obs. 96005126
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Rob Foster
fig. e Rob Foster, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 83155158
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Allan Harris
fig. f Allan Harris, CC0 1.0 / obs. 53602591
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Reuven Martin
fig. g Reuven Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 52367046
Betula cordifolia, photographed by Allan Harris
fig. h Allan Harris, CC0 1.0 / obs. 50462889

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 21 botanical countries

Regions where Betula cordifolia is native: Labrador, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin LabradorMaineMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNova ScotiaOntarioPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSouth CarolinaTennesseeVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin
Native distribution of Betula cordifolia, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Labrador LAB NORTHERN AMERICA
Maine MAI
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 786 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.4 °C -14.8 °C -7.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.4 °C 21.4 °C 24.8 °C
Annual rainfall 799 mm 1,398 mm 1,926 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 98 mm 281 mm 385 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 786 research-grade observations of Betula cordifolia that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 7 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Betula alba var. cordifolia (Regel) Regel
  • Betula alba var. cordifolia (Regel) Fernald
  • Betula papyracea var. cordifolia (Regel) Dippel
  • Betula papyrifera f. cordifolia (Regel) C.K.Schneid.
  • Betula papyrifera subsp. cordifolia (Regel) A.E.Murray
  • Betula papyrifera var. cordifolia (Regel) Regel
  • Betula papyrifera var. cordifolia (Regel) Fernald

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.