Betula alleghaniensis colored, peeling bark of yellow birch. For young trees where bark has not yet developed, yellow birch can also be identified by its hairy buds and stems; sweet birch has hairless buds. The yellow birch was first described by François André Michaux in 1812 as "Betula lutea". In 1904, Nathaniel Lord Britton described what he considered to be a new closely related species of birch as "Betula alleghaniensis", differing from "B. lutea" by its shorter fruiting scales and mostly cordate (vs. rarely cordate) leaf bases. After comparing the descriptions and illustrations of "B. lutea" and "B. alleghaniensis", Merritt Fernald found
Cyclocarya female catkins 25–30 cm long at maturity, bearing several small winged nuts with a circular wing 2.5–6 cm diameter right round the nut (instead of two wings at the sides as in "Pterocarya"). Cyclocarya Cyclocarya is a genus of flowering plants in the family Juglandaceae, comprising a single species Cyclocarya paliurus (qing qian liu or wheel wingnut), formerly treated in the genus "Pterocarya" as "Pterocarya paliurus". It is native to eastern and central China. It is a deciduous tree growing to 30 m tall. The foliage is similar to "Pterocarya", with pinnate leaves 20–25 cm long with five to eleven