A species of tree in the family Betulaceae (ord. Fagales, clade Rosids, kingdom Plantae). The silver birch typically reaches 15 to 25 m tall (exceptionally up to 31 m) with a slender trunk usually under 40 cm diameter. The bark on the trunk and branches is golden-brown at first, but later this turns to white as a result of papery tissue developing on the surface and peeling off in flakes, in a similar manner to the closely related paper birch (B. papyrifera). The bark remains smooth until the tree gets quite large, but in older trees, the bark thickens, becoming irregular, dark, and rugged. The leaves have short, slender stalks and are 3 to 7 cm long, triangular with broad, untoothed, wedge-shaped bases, slender pointed tips, and coarsely double-toothed, serrated margins.

Birchjuice / Birkensaft

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in March / April


choose a tree which has cca 20-30 cm diameter at 1m height


at 1m height, drill a cca 2cm-5cm hole with 0.5 cm diameter


insert a drinking straw or a glass tube


collect max 2-3 liters per tree


enclose the drill hole with earth/soil and ash (otherwise the tree could "bleed to death")


for a chosen tree, do not apply more often than once in 2 years

What a Birch provides ...

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...shoes, containers, boats, mats, roofs, brooms, craddles for newborn, tar, oil, birch flour, torches, paper / postcards, fire in rainy times, chewing gums ...

... information about beginning of the spring, substrate for most robust trees,  shamanic drums ... 
 
...Flavonoids, Saponines, Salicylate, Vitamine C, Ascorbic acids, Betulin acid (good against skin cancer), Xylit ...

Birch provides four good things: she illuminates (used for torches); she strangles cries (birch tar used for creeking wheels); she heals the sick and she purifies (birch canes in sauna).

Birkenruteerziehungsngsinstrument

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Die Birke ist auch heut zu Tag in großer Ehr, dieweil sie die böse uns ungehorsame Kinder und Jugend straffet. Daher man dann in Teutschen Reimen sagen: O Du gute Bircken Ruth, Du machst die ungehorsamen Kinder gut ! (Lonicerus, 1679)

Beith

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Beith is the Irish name of the first letter (Irish "letter": sing.fid, pl.feda) of the Ogham alphabet, meaning "birch". In Old Irish, the letter name was Beithe, which is related to Welsh bedw(en), Breton bezv(enn), and Latin betula. Its Proto-Indo-European root was *gʷet- 'resin, gum'. Its phonetic value is

ᚁ


This moreover is the first thing that was written by Ogham, i.e. (the birch) b was written, and to convey a warning to Lug son of Ethliu it was written respecting his wife lest she should be carried away from him into faeryland, to wit, seven b’s in one switch of birch: Thy wife will be seven times carried away from thee into faeryland or into another country, unless birch guard her. On that account, moreover, b, birch, takes precedence, for it is in birch that Ogham was first written. (from Auraicept na n-Éces, "the Scholar's Primer")