Betula costata

This large handsome birch can reach 30m with a trunk 1 metre in diameter in its native habitat in the Far East. It is used there in plywood and by the furniture industry but is also a beautiful park tree. The leaves are slender, long and oval, and the branches droop attractively. The bark varies from white to cream, silvery or even pale red, exfoliating showily from the trunk and large branches in broad strips. In old age the bark becomes impressively thick.