Betula fruticosaPall.

Japanese bog birch

WFO wfo-0000804735 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Betula fruticosa, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-09 / obs. 158428780
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. b Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 76294867
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. c Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 76121715
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. d Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112767778
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Andreas Taeger
fig. e Andreas Taeger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164602609
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Евгений Егорейченков
fig. f Евгений Егорейченков, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190836588
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Rose Zappa
fig. g Rose Zappa, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47195215
Betula fruticosa, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. h Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 113954856

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Betula fruticosa is native: Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Japan, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Manchuria, Mongolia, Primorye, Sakhalin, Yakutiya AltayAmurBuryatiyaChitaInner MongoliaIrkutskJapanKamchatkaKhabarovskKrasnoyarskMagadanManchuriaMongoliaPrimoryeSakhalinYakutiya Korea
Native distribution of Betula fruticosa, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kamchatka KAM
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Magadan MAG
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
Primorye PRM
Sakhalin SAK
Yakutiya YAK

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 294 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -34.9 °C -26.4 °C -19.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 15.7 °C 21.9 °C 24.2 °C
Annual rainfall 316 mm 461 mm 841 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 9 mm 29 mm 71 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 294 research-grade observations of Betula fruticosa 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 44 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 adasii T.V.Egorova & Sipliv.
  • Betula baicalensis Sukaczev
  • Betula baicalensis f. obscura Popov
  • Betula barguzinensis Popov
  • Betula cyclophylla Nakai
  • Betula divaricata Ledeb.
  • Betula evenkiensis Polozhij
  • Betula fruticosa Willd.
  • Betula fruticosa subsp. fusca (Pall. ex Georgi) M.Schemberg
  • Betula fruticosa subsp. ruprechtiana (Trautv.) Kitag.
  • Betula fruticosa var. fusenensis (Nakai) Liou
  • Betula fruticosa var. macrostachys S.L.Tung
  • Betula fruticosa var. ovalifolia (Rupr.) S.L.Tung
  • Betula fruticosa var. paishanensis (Nakai) S.L.Tung
  • Betula fruticosa var. ruprechtiana Trautv.
  • Betula fusca Pall. ex Georgi
  • Betula fusenensis Nakai
  • Betula gmelinii var. zyzyphifolia (Z.Wang & S.L.Tung) G.H.Liu & E.W.Ma
  • Betula henriettae Sukaczev & V.N.Vassil.
  • Betula humilis f. reticulata (Rupr.) Regel
  • Betula humilis var. kamtschatica Regel
  • Betula humilis var. ovalifolia (Rupr.) Regel
  • Betula humilis var. palustris J.F.Gmel.
  • Betula humilis var. reticulata (Rupr.) Regel

and 20 more.

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.