There's a project going to restore Scotland's high altitude Mountain Birch woodland. They need to collect seed from the scattering of surviving trees, and you guys spend a lot of time up there and it'd be great if you could help.
Probably not a lot of help this, but last winter I was astounded to see a dwarf Scots Pine sticking out of the snow on Ben Macdhui near the main path at 1160metres. Thats one tough little tree.
Absolutely, a big problem nationally. There's NO regeneration at all in the streamside Alder woodland in Northumberland. It'll be gone in 100 years. They take out about 2000/3000 a year Roe deer in Kielder Forest. Think of all that easy-to-get, organic free-range food if they extended the culls to the whole county. Better of course would be re-introducing Lynx, IMHO.
But those Scottish Mountain Birch need a helping hand, or it may never happen.
> 'Mountain birch' is a bit of a vague term, but here's some useful taxonomy. Seems like it covers B. pubescens for Scotland. '''
It's a distinct subspecies -from your link: "In the Nordic regions of Europe mountain birches (Figs. 9.13-9.15) are treated as a subspecies of Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii (formerly ssp. tortuosa)" Stace 4 ed. still has it as ssp. tortuosa. The one you see all over the place in the highlands is ssp. pubescens. In Northumberland it's now mostly various stages of hybridisation between B. pubescens and B. pendula.
Once the seed has been collected, would they be grown on in pots, plugs or nursery?
When the saplings are planted out in their permanent position, how would they then be protected from deer and sheep?
Agree the best course of action long-term would be the reintroduction of predators, but the livestock and shooting fraternities are just too powerful and influential, so that may never be an option in many areas.
No, silver birch is Betula pendula. As the OP suggest, this species hybridises freely with our other indigenous birch, B. pubescens (hairy or downy birch), but the article suggests that in Scotland silver birch doesn't grow high, and it's just B. pubescens that does, sometimes in the form of B. pubescens ssp. carpatica.
As a rule of thumb, silver birch has the graceful pendulous branches, hence its Latin name, while downy birch is much bushier, shrubbier and lacks the descending branches: https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=249045 . The former is a tree of the east and south, the other of the west and the north (just like our two indigenous oaks).
Agreed, an absolutely outstanding collection of pictures from different photographers. Joe Cornish's picture 'Birch and Mountains' (of the Lairig Ghru), in particular, has a wonderful purity and simplicity.
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