Betula humilisSchrank

Shrubby Birch

WFO wfo-0000333388 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Betula humilis, photographed by Natalya Ivanova
fig. a Natalya Ivanova, CC BY 4.0 / 2017-08-22 / obs. 9938985
Betula humilis, photographed by Ilya Filippov
fig. b Ilya Filippov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33544519
Betula humilis, photographed by Евгений Егорейченков
fig. c Евгений Егорейченков, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151265526
Betula humilis, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. d Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 89288065
Betula humilis, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. e Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 89288451
Betula humilis, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. f Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 89289029
Betula humilis, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. g Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88694576
Betula humilis, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. h Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 84882578

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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Betula humilis is native: Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Mongolia, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Central European Russia, East European Russia, Germany, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine BuryatiyaIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskMongoliaWest SiberiaXinjiangAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusCentral European RussiaEast European RussiaGermanyNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaPolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Betula humilis, 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
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Central European Russia RUC
East European Russia RUE
Germany GER
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Buryatiya BRY ASIA-TEMPERATE
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Mongolia MON
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX

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 418 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -23.7 °C -8.8 °C -5.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.8 °C 22.3 °C 23.7 °C
Annual rainfall 488 mm 661 mm 1,041 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 53 mm 107 mm 159 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 418 research-grade observations of Betula humilis 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 26 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 extremiorientalis Kuzen. & V.N.Vassil.
  • Betula fruticans Pall.
  • Betula fruticosa subsp. extremiorientalis (Kuzen. & V.N.Vassil.) Vorosch.
  • Betula humilis f. calcarata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. crispa Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. elliptica Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. elliptica Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. elliptica
  • Betula humilis f. obovata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. ovata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis f. ovata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis var. camtschatica Regel
  • Betula humilis var. commutata Regel
  • Betula humilis var. cuneata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis var. genuina Regel
  • Betula humilis var. oycowiensis Nyman
  • Betula humilis var. socolowii Regel
  • Betula humilis var. subcordata Perfil.
  • Betula humilis var. vulgaris Perfil.
  • Betula kamtschatica H.Buek
  • Betula myrsinoides Tausch
  • Betula oycowiensis Rchb.
  • Betula palustris Rupr.
  • Betula sibirica Lodd. ex Regel

and 2 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.