Contributing artist 2020 
Val Lowe

‘Silver Birch’ Betula pendula

 
Most of us drive along Plains Road, Wetheral and through the ‘beech tunnel’ with our eyes firmly on the road ahead.  If you slow down and look to left and right you will see that behind the tall beeches are plantations of birch trees, some growing through emerald green moss and on the other side of the road through a carpet of russet beech leaves.
 
These gentle, graceful trees owe its name to the white/silvery peeling bark on the trunk.  The branches are slender and often pendulous with roughly triangular shaped leaves which turn yellow in the autumn before they fall.  The flowers are catkins.
 
The trees cast little shade due to its light and airy canopy allowing other plants and fungi to grow beneath it.   A wide range of insects and birds are found in birch woodland.
 
As well as being planted decoratively in parks and gardens its timber has traditionally been turned into small objects such as toys, tools and handles: its ‘brush’ twigs made into racecourse jumps and brushes, and the use of its bark as water resistant ‘paper’ - for this reason birch was the wood of choice for building canoes.  Various parts of the tree have been shown to have medicinal properties and in the past an infusion of birch leaves was used as an antiseptic.
 
2020 is The Year of the Tree - let’s embrace their beauty and importance.



Val Lowe is on the Wetheral Art Exhibition Committee.