Betula glandulosa Michx.

  • Authority

    Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

  • Family

    Betulaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Betula glandulosa Michx.

  • Description

    Species Description - Depressed or erect shrubs to 2 m, with close brown bark, the twigs and young lvs conspicuously dotted with resin-glands; lvs small, firm, obovate, varying to flabellate- obovate or rotund, roundly toothed, with mostly 3–5 pairs of lateral veins; petioles very minutely puberulent; fruiting catkins 1–2.5 cm; scales 2.5–4 mm, the lateral lobes ascending, or often widely divergent; frs broadly ovate to obovate, 1.2–2.5 × 1.5–2.3 mm, the body 1–1.5 mm wide. Bogs and wet alpine slopes and summits; widespread in boreal N. Amer., s. to the higher mts. of Me., N.H., and N.Y., and also to n. Ind., Minn., and the w. cordillera. Our ne. mt. plants, 2n=28, with small lvs 1–2(3) cm that lack long hairs, are var. glandulosa. The more w., less alpine plants, 2n=56 as in B. pumila, with the lvs avg larger (2–3 or even 5 cm) and ± pilose when young, are var. glandulifera (Regel) Gleason, on ecological and cytologic grounds perhaps better called B. pumila var. glandulifera Regel, but morphologically more like B. glandulosa.

  • Common Names

    dwarf birch