Betula albosinensis Seeds | Chinese Red Birch
LATIN NAME: Betula albosinensis
COMMON NAME: Chinese Red Birch
Plant Profile
The Chinese Red Birch is a deciduous tree of the birch family from the mountains of northern and central China, and its bark is the reason gardeners grow it: a smooth, polished, coppery-red to orange-pink bark that peels in thin, papery sheets and curls back from the trunk in rollers, catching the winter sun like burnished metal. On mature trunks the colour deepens and the white lenticel bands show through, and a group of three trees in winter bark is one of the great garden sights of the season.
It reaches fifteen to twenty-five metres with an upright, open crown of small, toothed, mid-green leaves that turn clear yellow in autumn, and long, dangling catkins in spring. It is a mountain tree in the wild, growing with firs and maples on cool, moist slopes.
Science & Biotechnology
The species was introduced to Western gardens in the early twentieth century through the great Chinese seed collections, and its vivid bark has made it a standing subject of ornamental tree selection: nurseries have rowed out seedlings for decades, picking the most intensely coppery-barked individuals and naming them, so that the trade’s stock now reflects a century of selection for exactly that character. Botanically it sits in a variable complex of Asian birches whose boundaries have been argued over, and the peel-bark trait it shares with relatives has been studied for what it says about bark mechanics and defence. In cultivation it is fully hardy in Britain and northern Europe and remarkably adaptable to soil.
Seed-grown trees vary in bark colour, which is precisely what makes raising it from seed interesting: a batch will run from pale pink to deep mahogany, and the keeper trees are obvious by year three or four.
Uses & Benefits
In the garden it is a specimen tree for all seasons: spring catkins, light summer shade, yellow autumn colour, and above all the winter bark, best displayed against a dark background or an evergreen backdrop and lit from the north so the colour stays saturated. It suits cool, moist, deep soils and grows fast enough to reward within five years.
The bark peels in sheets clean enough to write on, a property its relatives across Eurasia have exploited for millennia. As with other birches, the spring sap can be tapped and the bark has a place in the European folk-materia-medica, but the garden value is visual.
Growing from Seed
Sow the fine seed on the surface of a free-draining compost in late winter, either after a month of cold stratification or fresh with a period of autumn sowing outdoors; do not cover it deeply, since light helps germination. Keep the trays cool, bright and evenly moist, and expect germination within three weeks.
Prick out early and grow the seedlings fast with steady water, potting on each spring; the bark colour begins to show by the third or fourth year, which is when to select and discard. Plant out in autumn into deep, moist soil in full sun, spacing for a twenty-metre crown. Water through the first two summers; after that it is self-sufficient.
Our Take
The most beautiful bark of any hardy tree: coppery red, peeling in curls, best in winter sun. Fast, easy and variable from seed, so grow a batch and keep the best.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Chinese Red Birch often pair it with these related subjects: