The Latin name of the tree is Betula. It is based on the word batula, from the verb batuere, translated as "to beat" or "to whip" - a reminder of the bitter fate of not very diligent schoolchildren in the past, who happened to taste "birch porridge". In European languages, most names for birch come from the Indo-European "bhe" - light, sparkling.
Linguists associate the Russian name for birch with the verb "to protect". This is due to the fact that the Slavs considered birch to be a gift from the gods, protecting people. Near Leningrad, a birch alley stretches for tens of kilometers, repeating the curves of the front line of the legendary defense...
Birch is a deciduous tree up to 20 m high with drooping branches and smooth white, easily exfoliating bark. Young branches are bare, covered with warts, annual branches are reddish-brown. The leaves are rhombic-ovate or triangular-ovate, broadly cuneate at the base, pointed at the end, twice-acutely serrated along the edge, smooth on both sides. The leaves and young branches are covered with resinous glands, fragrant. The length of the leaves is 4-7 cm, the width is 2.5-5 cm. The petioles are 2-3 times shorter than the plates. Male and female flowers are in catkins. Male (staminate) catkins are drooping in 2-3 at the ends of branches, 5-6 cm long, female (pistillate) are single, on short lateral branches, axillary, erect or deflected, 2.5-3 cm long. The fruit is a one-seeded flat-compressed nut with two membranous wings, the wings are two to three times wider than the nut itself. It blooms in April - May, the fruits ripen in August - September. It is found in mixed and pure stands as a forest-forming species in the forest and forest-steppe zone, in forest groves (the European part - throughout the forest zone, except for the north; in Crimea it is very rare in the mountain-forest belt; in Western Siberia - everywhere in the forest zone, and in the steppe - up to Mugodzhary in the south). It is widely distributed in parks, gardens, near roads.
