Paper birches both beautiful and useful

Life is funny. One minute you’re standing beneath a canopy of leaves ablaze in an autumn blue sky; the next minute the trees are delicate crystal sculptures only nature could have crafted.

OK, it was two months, not two minutes, but time didn’t lessen the grand fire and ice display of fall’s mercurial days. It only served to enhance the beauty in one stand of trees.

The shadowy sentinels in this particular grove have weathered countless storms, witnessed the fleeting glow of the northern lights and basked in the twinkling of hundreds of starry skies.

In this mix of evergreens, maple, birch and what-have-you in my back yard grows a skyscraper of a tree, a double paper birch.

As elegant as it is a tower of strength, this favorite birch was alive long before I was, but it is no less a part of my garden world than the trees I’ve planted myself. It means more, in fact, because it has always been in my life.

After I made my annual fall trek to check out the birch and its golden crown of leaves (I’ll even admit to a quick hug to feel the solidity of its trunk as the wind swayed its upper reaches), I started digging up tidbits of history on the birch clan, Betula, and its members, of which there are about 40.

Hardy specimens that are mostly disease-resistant and quick to grow, birches were among the first trees to establish themselves after the glaciers melted. Even today, birches are important to reforestation and as a protective cover for other plants. Commercially, birch is a vital woodworking product used in flooring, cabinetry and furniture.

Paper birch, B. papyrifera, is also called canoe birch and white birch. This tree, which can grow 70 feet tall and have a 2-foot diameter, is recognized most easily by its bark: Paperlike strips of the chalky to milky white outer bark roll back to reveal the orange-colored inner bark. The base of the tree usually looks brown and scaly. (Never, ever strip the bark from a living paper birch; it forever will be marred with a black scar.)

The products made from paper birch are a curious lot of items whose origins I’ve never really pondered. They run the gamut from ice cream sticks and toothpicks to broom handles, clothespins, bobbins and toys.

Perhaps the most popular image of the use of paper birch is as a birch bark canoe. According to the National Audubon Society’s tree guide, North American Indians crafted these canoes just about entirely from trees. The bark was stretched over white cedar frames, and the thread used to hold it together came from tamarack (hackmatack) roots. Resin from pine or balsam fir was used to seal the seams.

Indians (and early settlers, too, I read elsewhere) also used the waterproof bark for roofing and shoes. Even when wet, the bark of the paper and yellow birch will burn.

Little of this I knew as I stood beneath my paper birch behemoth. I simply peered up in awe as the leaves rustled and intermingled with those of its neighboring maple. Only recently have I been wondering what the view from the top must be like, because on the other side of the house lives another particular tree.

A potted dwarf Alberta spruce came for Christmas last year. Despite frequent watering and lots of attention, all the needles fell off long before winter was past.

Never say die to a gardener: I refused to part with the skeleton, keeping it outside in its pot all through the wet summer. Then one day I saw something green near the base of the tree in the top of the pot.

Rising from the moist dirt were two tiny shoots of spruce.

This fall, while planting spring bulbs in my newly expanded front-yard garden, I tucked the baby spruce, skeleton and all, in between the tulips and daffodils.

Then once again I turned to books to learn about my newest addition. Spruce, it turns out, is a clan of about 40, like birch. The genus, Picea, is native to the temperate and cold Northern Hemisphere regions.

Some spruce wood is musically inclined, as sounding boards in pianos and in the bodies of violins. As a timber tree, it’s used in construction and boats, not to mention in pulpwood.

If things go as planned, neither dwarf Alberta spruce will grow taller than its advertised 8 to 10 feet, and both will make perfect twin Christmas trees in years to come.

I can just see them now, all aglow in the starry night, twinkling with lights as their wise old neighbor to the north, my paper birch, looks down from on high.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS copy editor.