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Key to families | Table of families and genera

This text currently parallels The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California, Second Edition that is now available at the University of California Press.

Text appearing in blue on this page will not appear in the printed book; it will be displayed only on the Web. Specimen numbers are hyperlinked to records in the Consortium of California Herbaria data view where possible. Taxa are hyperlinked to entries in the Jepson Interchange via the "[Online Interchange]" link.

 

BETULA BIRCH

Stem: trunk < 30 m; bark smooth or scaly, aromatic, often peeling in thin layers; twigs puberulent, glandular, or both; lenticels prominent; winter buds sessile, 3-scaled.
Leaf: glandular-hairy; blade 2–5 cm, wide- elliptic, base ± truncate to tapered.
Staminate inflorescence: 2–7 cm; bracts each subtending 3 flowers, 3 bractlets.
Pistillate inflorescence: 2–3 cm; bracts each subtending 3 flowers, 3 bractlets.
Staminate flower: sepals 4; stamens 2.
Pistillate flower: sepals 0.
Fruit: many, in a non- cone-like catkin, not enclosed by bract, winged; bracts lobed, papery, released with but not attached to fruit.
50 species: circumboreal. (Latin: birch) Important wildlife food; wood used for interior finishing; many species cultivated.

Key to Betula

1. Plant < 3 m; leaf leathery, tip round, margin crenate ..... B. glandulosa

1' Plant > 3 m; leaf not leathery, tip acute, margin doubly serrate except at base ..... B. occidentalis

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Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) [year] Jepson eFlora, http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/IJM.html [accessed on month, day, year]
Citation for an individual treatment: [Author of taxon treatment] [year]. [Taxon name] in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, [URL for treatment]. Accessed on [month, day, year].
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