[citation needed] The silver birch is a medium-sized deciduous tree that owes its common name to the white peeling bark on the trunk.

The twigs are slender and often pendulous and the leaves are roughly triangular with doubly serrate margins and turn yellow and brown in autumn before they fall.

Many species of birds and animals are found in birch woodland, the tree supports a wide range of insects and the light shade it casts allows shrubby and other plants to grow beneath its canopy.

It is planted decoratively in parks and gardens and is used for forest products such as joinery timber, firewood, tanning, racecourse jumps, and brooms.

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).

[7] The small, 1- to 2-mm winged seeds ripen in late summer on pendulous, cylindrical catkins 2 to 4 cm (0.8 to 1.6 in) long and 7 mm (0.3 in) broad.

[6] The silver birch grows naturally from western Europe eastwards to Kazakhstan, the Sakha Republic in Siberia, Mongolia, and the Xinjiang province in China, and southwards to the mountains of the Caucasus and northern Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

Its light seeds are easily blown by the wind and it is a pioneer species, one of the first trees to sprout on bare land or after a forest fire.

[10] It has been introduced into North America, where it is known as the European white birch, and is considered invasive in the states of Kentucky, Maryland, Washington, and Wisconsin.

carelica, fontqueri, laciniata, lapponica, meridionalis, microlepis, and parvibracteata, as well as forms Betula pendula f. bircalensis, crispa, and palmeri.

[8] Birds found in birch woodland include the chaffinch, tree pipit, willow warbler, nightingale, robin, woodcock, redpoll, and green woodpecker.

[10] The branches of the silver birch often have tangled masses of twigs known as witch's brooms growing among them, caused by the fungus Taphrina betulina.

Old trees are often killed by the decay fungus Fomitopsis betulina and fallen branches rot rapidly on the forest floor.

[18] The larvae of a large number of species of butterflies, moths, and other insects feed on the leaves and other parts of the silver birch.

[22] In the United States, the wood is attacked by the bronze birch borer (Agrilus anxius), an insect pest to which it has no natural resistance.

[24] Leafy, fragrant bunches of young silver birch boughs (called vihta or vasta) are used to gently beat oneself while bathing in the Finnish sauna.

[25] Silver birch is often planted in parks and gardens, grown for its white bark and gracefully drooping shoots, sometimes even in warmer-than-optimum places such as Los Angeles and Sydney.

In Scandinavia and other regions of northern Europe, it is grown for forest products such as lumber and pulp, as well as for aesthetic purposes and ecosystem services.

[5] Silver birch wood is pale in colour with a light reddish-brown heartwood and is used in making furniture, plywood, veneers, parquet blocks, skis, and kitchen utensils, and in turnery.

The thin sheets of bark that peel off young wood contain a waxy resin and are easy to ignite even when wet.