''Betula utilis'', the Himalayan birch (''bhojpatra'', sa, भूर्ज ''bhūrjá''), is a

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree native to the

Western Himalayas The Western Himalayas refers to the western half of the Himalayas, in northern Pakistan and northwestern India. It is also known as the Punjab Himalayas. Four of the five tributaries of the Indus River in Punjab (Beas, Chenab, Jhelum, and Ravi) r ...

, growing at elevations up to . The Latin

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''utilis'' means "useful", and refers to the many uses of the different parts of the tree. The white, paper-like bark was used in ancient times for writing

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

scriptures and texts. It is still used as paper for the writing of sacred mantras, with the bark placed in an amulet and worn for protection. Selected varieties are used for landscaping throughout the world, even while some areas of its native habitat are being lost due to overuse of the tree for firewood.

Taxonomy

''Betula utilis'' was described and named by botanist

David Don David Don (21 December 1799 – 15 December 1841) was a Scottish people, Scottish botanist. Biography David Don was born on 21 December 1799 at Doo Hillock, Forfar, Angus, Scotland to Caroline Clementina Stuart, and her husband George Don of ...

in his ''Prodromus Florae Nepalensis'' (1825), from specimens collected by

Nathaniel Wallich Nathaniel Wolff Wallich FRS FRSE (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the Danish East India Company and the British ...

in Nepal in 1820. ''Betula jacquemontii'' ( Spach), first described and named in 1841, was later found to be a variety of ''B. utilis'', and is now ''Betula utilis'' var. ''jacquemontii''.

Description

In its native habitat, ''B. utilis'' tends to form forests, growing as a shrub or tree reaching up to tall. It frequently grows among scattered conifers, with an undergrowth of shrubs that typically includes evergreen ''

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

''. The tree depends on moisture from snowmelt, rather than from the monsoon rains. They often have very bent growth due to the pressure of the deep winter snow in the Himalaya. Leaves are ovate, long, with serrated margins, and slightly hairy. Flowering occurs from May–July, with only a few male

catkin A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated (anemophilous) but sometimes insect-pollinated (as in ''Salix''). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged cl ...

s, and short, single (sometimes paired) female catkins. The

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower, and structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepals when ...

has four parts in male flowers, and is absent in the female flowers. Fruits ripen in September–October. The thin, papery bark is very shiny, reddish brown, reddish white, or white, with horizontal

lenticel A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the bark of woody stems and roots of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It functions as a pore, providing a ...

s. The bark peels off in broad, horizontal belts, making it very usable for creating even large pages for texts. A fungal growth, locally called ''bhurja-granthi'', forms black lumps on the tree weighing up to 1 kg. The wood is very hard and heavy, and quite brittle. The heartwood is pink or light reddish brown.

History and use

The bark of Himalayan birch was used centuries ago in India as paper for writing lengthy scriptures and texts in Sanskrit and other scripts, particularly in historical

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

. Its use as paper for books is mentioned by early Sanskrit writers

Kalidasa Kālidāsa (''fl.'' 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and ...

(c. 4th century CE),

Sushruta Sushruta, or ''Suśruta'' (Sanskrit: सुश्रुत, IAST: , ) was an ancient Indian physician. The ''Sushruta Samhita'' (''Sushruta's Compendium''), a treatise ascribed to him, is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on ...

(c. 3rd century CE), and Varahamihira (6th century CE). In the late 19th century, Kashmiri pandits reported all of their books were written on Himalayan birch bark until

Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...

introduced paper in the 16th century. The Sanskrit word for the tree is ''bhûrja''—sharing a similarity with other

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

words that provide the origin for the common name "birch". The bark is still used for writing sacred

mantra A mantra (Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ma ...

s, which are placed in an

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...

and worn around the neck for protection or blessing. This practice was mentioned as early as the 8th or 9th century CE, in the Lakshmi Tantra, a

Pancaratra ''Pancharatra'' (IAST: ''Pāñcarātra'') was a religious movement in Hinduism that originated in late 3rd-century BCE around the ideas of Narayana and the various avatars of Vishnu as their central deities. According to legend, the bark was also used as clothing by attendants of

Lord Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

. The bark is widely used for packaging material (particularly butter), roof construction, umbrella covers, bandages, and more. The wood is used for bridge construction, and the foliage for fodder. The most widespread use is for firewood, which has caused large areas of habitat to be eliminated or reduced. Parts of the plant, including the fungal growth (''bhurja-granthi'') have also long been used in local traditional medicine.

Conservation

Deforestation due to overuse of the tree has caused loss of habitat for many native groves of ''B. utilis'' (locally called ''bhojpatra'' in the Indian Himalaya). The first high-altitude ''bhojpatra'' nursery was established in 1993 at Chirbasa, just above

Gangotri Gangotri is a town and a ''Nagar Panchayat'' (municipality) in Uttarkashi district in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is 99 km from Uttarkashi, the main district headquarter. It is a Hindu pilgrim town on the banks of the river Bhagirathi � ...

, where many Hindus go on pilgrimage to the source of the sacred

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

river. Dr. Harshvanti Bisht, a Himalayan mountaineer, established the first nursery and continues to expand the reforestation of ''bhojpatra'' in the Gangotri area and inside

Gangotri National Park Gangotri National Park is a national park in Uttarkashi District of Uttarakhand in India, covering about . Its habitat consists of coniferous forests, alpine meadows and glaciers. Gaumukh at Gangotri glacier, the origin of river Ganga, is locat ...

. About 12,500 bhojpatra saplings had been planted in the area by the year 2000. In recent years, attempts have been made to ban the collection of ''bhojpatra'' trees in the Gangotri area.

Varieties and cultivars

Many named varieties and cultivars are used in landscaping throughout the world. In the eastern end of the tree's native distribution, several forms have orange- or copper-colored bark. ''Betula utilis'' var. ''jacquemontii'', from the western end of the native habitat, is widely used because several cultivars have especially white bark. The following have gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established annual award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. History The Award of Garden Merit ...

:- *'Doorenbos' *'Fascination' *'Forest Blush' *'Grayswood Ghost' *'Jermyns' *'Park Wood' *'Silver Shadow' The bark of 'Wakehurst Place Chocolate', as the name implies, is dark brown to nearly black.

References

External links

Bhojpatra conservation in Gangotri-GaumukhDavid Don's description in ''Prodromus floræ Nepalensis''Flora of China
{{Taxonbar, from=Q930814 utilis Trees of Afghanistan Flora of the Indian subcontinent Trees of China Writing media Western Himalayan broadleaf forests Plants described in 1825 Garden plants of Asia Ornamental trees Trees of Nepal