BIRCH

10th March 2024

Photo Credit: Jarmila Horalkova (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

We have strict statutes and most biting laws,

The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,

Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,

Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch

Only to stick it in their children’s sight

For terror, not to use - in time the rod

More mocked than feared - so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,

And liberty plucks justice by the nose,

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

DUKE: Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 3

BIRCH (Sliver Birch: Betula pendula)

Both of Shakespeare’s references to Birch and linked to the beating of children. In the case above the Birch twigs are only a threat but the schoolteacher in Two Noble Kinsmen makes it clear that Birch is one of his main tools with ‘the small ones’.

Silver Birch was and is a commonly found tree in Britain. It is one of the pioneer species which colonise open areas and woodland edges. John Gerard (1597) records: “the rind of the body or trunk is hard without, white, rough and uneven, full of chinks and crevises: under which is found another fine barke, plaine, smoothe and as thin as paper, which heretofore was used in stead of paper to write on, before the making of paper was knowne: in Russia and these cold countries it serveth in stead of tiles and slates to cover their houses withall.” The city of Novgorod has produced a range of medieval Birch bark letters. Birch bark has been used in many cultures for building materials, clothing, canoes and containers.

Silver Birch is found in most parts of the UK. There are other Birch species including the native Downy Birch (Betula pubescens), Dwarf Birch (Betula nana) and introduced species including Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera) and Himalayan Birch (Betula utilis).

More Information

BSBI Plant Atlas 2020: Betula pendula

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Gerard, J. 1597 (first edition) The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1636 edition accessed via Archive.org)

Languages of the World: the Novgorod Birchbark Letters