Betula pubescensEhrh.

Brown BirchDowny BirchMountain BirchWhite Birchdowny birch

WFO wfo-0000335985 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Betula pubescens, photographed by Marina Potapova
fig. a Marina Potapova, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205374403
Betula pubescens, photographed by Marina Potapova
fig. b Marina Potapova, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205374557
Betula pubescens, photographed by Marina Potapova
fig. c Marina Potapova, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205374671
Betula pubescens, photographed by Marina Potapova
fig. d Marina Potapova, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205375127
Betula pubescens, photographed by Евгений Егорейченков
fig. e Евгений Егорейченков, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201807988
Betula pubescens, photographed by ll r Ирина
fig. f ll r Ирина, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199055593
Betula pubescens, photographed by David Sandler
fig. g David Sandler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198064447
Betula pubescens, photographed by Stephen James McWilliam
fig. h Stephen James McWilliam, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198077983

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
40567
Filed as
Betula pubescens Ehrh.
Det. by
D. E. Atha 1994-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 1994-08-10
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 42 botanical countries

Regions where Betula pubescens is native: Altay, Buryatiya, Iran, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Greenland, Newfoundland AltayBuryatiyaIranIrkutskKhabarovskKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaYakutiyaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraineGreenlandNewfoundland
Native distribution of Betula pubescens, 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
Belgium BGM
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Khabarovsk KHA
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Greenland GNL NORTHERN AMERICA
Newfoundland NFL

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 1,923 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -23.4 °C -10.9 °C 1.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 13.6 °C 21.8 °C 24.0 °C
Annual rainfall 487 mm 695 mm 1,702 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 60 mm 110 mm 293 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 1,923 research-grade observations of Betula pubescens 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.

Named cultivars 1 recorded

Selections of Betula pubescens that somebody named and propagated. A cultivar is not a botanical taxon: it is governed by the cultivated-plant code rather than the botanical one, so it appears in no taxonomic backbone, and it has no native range and no wild population of its own. These get no page here, because a cultivar has no photographs, no range and no flowering data of its own, and a page with none of those is not a page.

From Wikidata (CC0), joined to this species on its World Flora Online identifier, so the link to the parent is exact rather than a name match. This list is what is recorded in an openly licensed register; it is not every cultivar that exists, and for many genera it is not close. Why, and how far short it falls.

Also published as 198 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 acuminata Kindb.
  • Betula alba L.
  • Betula alba f. pubescens (Ehrh.) Bolzon
  • Betula alba lus. asplenifolia Regel
  • Betula alba lus. carpatica (Waldst. & Kit. ex Willd.) Regel
  • Betula alba lus. ledebourii Regel
  • Betula alba lus. macrophylla Regel
  • Betula alba lus. parvifolia Regel
  • Betula alba lus. pendula
  • Betula alba lus. rhombifolia (Tausch) Regel
  • Betula alba subsp. glutinosa (Trautv. ex Regel) Holub
  • Betula alba subsp. odorata (Bechst.) Dippel
  • Betula alba subsp. pubescens (Ehrh.) Regel
  • Betula alba subsp. tortuosa (Ledeb.) Regel
  • Betula alba var. carpatica Fernald
  • Betula alba var. carpatica (Waldst. & Kit. ex Willd.) Regel
  • Betula alba var. communis Hartm.
  • Betula alba var. fragilis Lilj.
  • Betula alba var. friesii Regel
  • Betula alba var. frutescens Wallr.
  • Betula alba var. glabrata (Wahlenb.) Muñoz Garm. & Pedrol
  • Betula alba var. glutinosa Trautv. ex Regel
  • Betula alba var. hornemannii (Regel) Regel
  • Betula alba var. hornemannii Regel

and 174 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.