Can anyone suggest where I can see a (stand?)group of Birch trees of the same type as what Birkenhead is supposed to be named after. Would like to see a couple of them planted in the Priory grounds or Hamilton Square just for showing what it may have looked like. I'm just a townie - no idea of different trees
Still wouldn't know whereabouts I'd actually see them. Could walk all over them places and not know one if I walked into one - need a definite guide to the spot. Perhaps best to go the park and find a ranger who may know or maybe bandycoot will know from when he checks in with his ducks
Around Wirral if it has relatively smooth, silver bark it's usually a birch of some description.
I also vaguely recall there being some Weeping Birches at the start of the footpath from Parkgate to Thurstaston, but it's been that long since I've been that way I don't want to send you on a wild goose chase.
There are plenty of Silver Birch by Thor's rock at Thurstaston - though if you don't know how to get there that's another matter.
Storeton woods is full of them, really useful trees. The wood burns well, it is easily carved and the sap (which is rising now) is good for winw, a base for beer and for emergency water.
Silver birch is a medium-sized deciduous tree, reaching 25 m tall , with a slender trunk and arched branches with drooping branchlets. The bark is white, often with dark marks or patches, especially near the base.
The shoots are rough with small warts and the leaves are up to 7 cm long, triangular with a broad base and pointed tip, with double-toothed serrated margins.
The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins, which the plant produces before the leaves in early spring, the tiny winged seeds are air borne and ripening during late summer on pendulous, cylindrical catkins abuot 4 cm long and 7 mm wide
It often grows with a mycorrhizal fungus Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) in a symbiotic relationship.
