It’s easy to forget at a time like this that something as ordinary as the annual National Tree Week is taking place. As walking is one of the few activities still feasible, it’s as a good a time as ...

Trees can be identified in winter by observing their needles, bark, branching patterns, and buds. Distinctive bark, such as the smooth gray bark of a beech or the peeling white bark of a paper birch, ...

Brown birch trees in both Southcentral and Interior Alaska this summer aren't signaling an early fall. Rather, they are subject to an infestation of small, leaf-munching larvae. Alaska is in the midst ...

If you want to be a true outdoorsman or woman, and a true survivor, you’ve got to become a plant person. I know, I know—it’s not as cool to walk around with your nose in a book as it is to sling lead ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Trees are among the earth's most useful and beautiful products of nature.

Mid-winter is my favorite time to harvest birch for sweet-flavored food and warming beverages. Birch trees are easy to identify in winter thanks to their distinctive bark. The bark is an eye-catching ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Botanical markers and tree characteristics should be used when identifying a ...

My birch tree has developed a yellowish color to the leaves. It also has been dropping a lot of brown leaves over the last couple of weeks. Are these two problems connected? What is wrong, and what ...

The pinkish-red spots on your birch’s leaves appear to be erineum patches, which are a type of gall caused by very tiny eriophyid mites feeding on the leaf tissue. You will need a microscope to see ...