COMMON FEATURES:

The buds are sharp and thick and sometimes grow on short stems.

The flower bud is the winter catkin.  In the spring these buds elongate to become the flowering catkin.

They all have simple ovate leaves with sharp toothed leaf margins and pointy tips.  The delicate stems and leaves all seem to shimmer and flutter with the wind, this characteristic of all the birches.

The bark displays its classic horizontal lenticels or disconnected stripes.