During this visit to Centennial Woods, I was tasked with finding and identifying one out of a set of chosen trees. The tree I chose was the Paper Birch, since compared to the other trees in the area, the unique bark it has makes it stand out.
I could tell that this was a paper birch by comparing its unique characteristics to those in the same species. I knew it wasn’t a river birch because the bark doesn’t have the striking salmon pink color river birches are known to have. I knew it wasn’t yellow birch because yellow birches are much thinner and slender in size, while this paper birch is much thicker. Finally, I knew it wasn’t a grey birch because it doesn’t have the noticeable black patches like grey birches commonly have on their bark.
