Trees, to 28 m; trunks often several, crowns narrow or pyramidal. Bark gray, smooth, darkening and breaking into shallow rectangular plates in age; lenticels inconspicuous. Winter buds stipitate, ellipsoid, 6-10 mm, apex rounded, long; stalks 2-8 mm; scales 2-3, outer 2 equal and valvate, usually heavily resin-coated. Leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 6-16 × 3-11 cm, leathery, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margins strongly revolute, deeply doubly serrate or crenate, with distinctly larger secondary teeth, apex acute to obtuse; surfaces abaxially glabrous to sparsely pubescent. Inflorescences formed season before flowering and exposed during winter; staminate catkins in 1 or more clusters of 2-6, 3.5-14 cm; sistillate catkins in 1 or more clusters of 3-8. Flowering before new growth in spring. Infructescences ovoid to nearly globose, 1-3.5 × 0.6-1.5 cm; peduncles 1-10 mm. Samaras ovate or elliptic, wings much narrower than body, irregularly elliptic to obovate, leathery.

Appetizer, astringent, cathartic, cytostatic, emetic, stomachic and tonic (bark)

Plants for a Future

Betulin (stem bark)

In the treatment of many complaints such as headaches, rheumatic pains, internal injuries, diarrhoea, to eczema, sores and aches (bark); for diarrhoea (catkins and young cones)