B04: Silver Birch: Betula pendula

Common throughout Britain on light soils and shallow peats, the Silver Birch can grow to 30 m in the right conditions. It grows very fast for the first 20 years or so, and can live for 180 years, but in the South of England it rarely lives beyond 100 years. Identified from the other native species of Birch, Betula pubescens, by large black diamonds on the mature trunk