Slender birch beauties that can beto meet not only in the forests, but also in city parks, in the streets and squares, once animate with the ancient Slavs and Druids and were considered sacred. The Berezov family includes 6 genera of trees, which are subdivided into 234 species.
The most beloved and revered among peoples of different countriesit was the birch. She devoted poetry, made legends about her, used her medicinal juices and brought gifts. All trees belonging to the Birch family (representatives - hornbeam, alder, hazel, birch and others), have healing properties that are still used today in medicine.
Кто хоть раз бывал в березовой роще, знает, что the air there is unusually clean. This is due to the fact that the leaves of this tree produce phytoncides - special antibacterial substances that can purify polluted air. This feature was known to people of antiquity, it was used to clean city streets of exhaust gases of modern city planners. That is why the most common tree in any public park is a family of birch trees. It also includes: hornbeam, hazel, alder, hmelegrab and ostriopsis.
All known white birch is divided into warty and fastigiata. Family Birch refers to deciduous trees, wind-blown and monoecious.
There is a birch warty pendulous (Betulaverrucosa) in Europe, North America, Central Asia and North Africa. This tree reaches 30 m in height and can live up to 120 and even more years. The young tree has a brownish bark, but by the age of 8 it has become white. It was for her color that she got her name. In translation from Ancient Celtic, betu means "white", so the dye in birch bark is called betulin.
The name of the warty birch wasThe resinous glandules located on its branches and looking like small warts. The leaves are what the Berezovye family unites. The general characteristic concerns, first of all, them. They are double-toothed, regular, reaching in length from 4 to 7 cm, in width - from 2 to 5 cm in most species of birch. More often they are smooth or slightly covered with villi, but they also occur with a "felt" pubescence.
The root system of birchen warty is powerful, butcan be both superficial and deep. It prefers fertile soil, fertilized and rich in minerals. Blossoms this tree from April to May, fruits (small nuts) ripen in August-September. Propagated by seeds.
This species of warty birch differsfrom it the structure of the crown. It is narrow and wedge-shaped, and branches stretch upward, unlike its "relative". At a low altitude of only 10 m, Fastigiata (the Birch family) has a very powerful root system and a wind-resistant trunk.
This tree grows very quickly - up to 40 cm per year,and life expectancy rarely exceeds 100 years. The foliage is the same as that of a birch warty, but it lasts much longer, until late autumn. Blooms in small green, irregularly shaped flowers up to 1 cm long.
This tree equally well tolerates both dry summers and cold winters. Natural pests - May beetle, tube-bug (beetle), Bucephalus hohlatka, birch stalker and silkworm nun.
Although alder is included in the Birch category, the family can not boast a more unusual tree than this. It is unique in everything:
Although there are up to 50 species of this tree,the most common are two - alder black and gray. The name is black (sticky - the second name), she got thanks to her trunk, which grows darker as she grows up. It is called sticky because of the leaves. Most often grows alone or with a cluster of the same trees. The alder black begins in April, and the fruits are fully ripened only after a year. He loves light and moisture.
Alder gray has not only the trunk of this color, butand leaves. It is unpretentious, frost-resistant and grows even on poor soil. Since alder gray has the ability to quickly grow into impenetrable thickets, it is most often planted to anchor the shores and slopes of troughs and ravines.
The Birch family also includes a hornbeam.His homeland is China and Asia. It feels great both in the shade and in the sun, but the soil prefers moistened, so in a dry summer requires additional watering.
In terms of life expectancy, hornbeam does not fit intofamily Birch, the characteristics of representatives of which on the whole coincide, and the average indicator reaches 100-120 years. This tree easily lives up to 300 years, growing to a height of 30 m, and width - up to 8 m.
Цветет граб небольшими мужскими и женскими inflorescences in the form of earrings, but fruit begins only after 15-20 years. The wood of this tree is used for making furniture and kitchen utensils, but only after special treatment from rotting, as it absorbs moisture and quickly deteriorates.
The entire family of birch, whose representativesfruit nuts, can not boast of such delicious fruits as the hazel. Hazel, as it is called by the people, has a leaf shape resembling a bream, for which it was called a hazel. From above they are dark green, and from below - light.
Common hazelnut rarely grows above 7 m,has flowers of two kinds - male in the form of earrings and female, reminiscent of the kidneys. The fruits of this tree are light brown in color, edible and have both excellent taste and benefit.
Sometimes an ordinary hazel is called a hazelnut, but this is not entirely true. Hazelnut is its cultivated species, and its fruits are much larger and more nutritious.
In total, there are 20 species of hazel, in natureof which are bushes, and others are tall trees reaching 30 m in height, for example as a bear nut growing to 200 years. A hazel variegated - bush birch family - does not exceed a height of 3 meters and gives the same delicious, but not such nutritious fruits as its ordinary variety.
This tree is poorly known in Europe, as its species grow in North America, Japan, Asia Minor and the Caucasus.
The hmelegrab grows to 25 m in height, has a haptic-shaped crown, brown bark and small-toothed regular leaves. In nature there are only 4 types of these trees:
Attempts to grow species of these trees in places with cold winters have not yet succeeded.
This is a genus of flowering shrub plants, home to China and Mongolia. They grow from 3 m to 5 m in height and stand out in 2 types:
This plant is poorly known in Europe, so you can see it only at home.
