birch

A birch is a slim northern tree with peeling white bark. A silver birch, a birch wood, the birches turn yellow.

It is one of the first trees to colonise open ground after fire or clearance, which is why birch woods are often young. The bark peels in papery strips and is waterproof — birch bark has been used for canoes, roofing and writing. Birch sap is tapped in spring like maple. Note birch as a verb, meaning to beat with birch twigs, which was a judicial punishment in Britain until 1948.