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Portrait of Dwarf birch

Nature · Shrubs

Dwarf birch

Native · deciduous, to 1 m · Highland blanket bog, above about 300 m

Betula nana — Betulaceae

Dwarf birch is a knee-high tundra shrub that spread across Britain as the ice retreated and now survives as a rare relict on high Scottish blanket bog, with a few outposts on the English border and one on Widdybank Fell in Teesdale. It is nationally scarce, at the southern edge of a range that runs to Iceland, Greenland and Arctic Canada. Its leaves are small, round and neatly scalloped.

How to spot them

  • ▸Prostrate to knee-high deciduous shrub, rarely over 30 cm in grazed Scottish sites, with stiff dull grey-brown twigs
  • ▸Tiny, round leaves under 2 cm across with regular rounded teeth, dark green above and paler below
  • ▸Erect catkins on short shoots in spring, wind-pollinated
  • ▸Wet blanket peat above about 300 m, where it grows with heather and cotton-grass
  • ▸Look-alikes: seedling downy birch has larger, pointed leaves on a tree-like stem; dwarf willow is a creeping mat with glossy, netted-veined leaves and willow catkins

How to know it

A knee-high shrub with tiny round scalloped leaves under 2 cm, on high Highland blanket bog, a relict of the Ice Age tundra

Dwarf birch — Betula nana.

Its southernmost British site is Widdybank Fell in Upper Teesdale, where leaf remains show it has been present for some seven thousand years

Dwarf birch — a Teesdale relict.

Its range runs from the Scottish Highlands to Iceland, Greenland and Arctic Canada, which makes it a plant of the tundra

Dwarf birch.

Sheep, red deer and moor-burning have restricted this species in Britain to wet, deep blanket peat

Dwarf birch.

Trees for Life and other Highland bodies are restoring this nationally scarce species across its former range

Dwarf birch — Betula nana.

Once widespread in Late Glacial Britain, it is now confined to Scotland, the Southern Uplands, the Cumbria–Northumberland border and Teesdale

Dwarf birch.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Betula nana, family Betulaceae; nana means dwarf
  • •A prostrate deciduous sub-shrub up to 1 m, though Scottish plants rarely exceed 30 cm because of grazing (Trees for Life; BSBI)
  • •In Britain confined to saturated blanket peat above about 300 m; Scottish records lie between roughly 245 and 855 m (BSBI)
  • •Widespread in Britain in the Late Glacial; now in central and north-west Scotland, the Southern Uplands, Cumbria, Northumberland and Widdybank Fell, Teesdale, its southernmost British site (BSBI)
  • •Subfossil leaves show it has been at Teesdale for some seven thousand years; the Teesdale population is tiny and flowers poorly (BSBI)
  • •Classified nationally scarce; threats include grazing and heather burning (BSBI; Trees for Life)
  • •Reproduces by tiny wind-blown seed and by underground shoots (Trees for Life)
  • •It hybridises with downy birch, complicating identification in the field

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources