Betula pendula scales. The foliage is a pale to medium green and turns yellow early in the autumn before the leaves fall. In mid-summer, the female catkins mature and the male catkins expand and release pollen, and wind pollination takes place. The small 1 to 2 mm winged seeds ripen in late summer on pendulous, cylindrical catkins long and broad. The seeds are very numerous and are separated by scales, and when ripe, the whole catkin disintegrates and the seeds are spread widely by the wind. Silver birch can easily be confused with the similar downy birch ("Betula pubescens"). Yet, downy birch
Chrysolepis three sweet, edible nuts, eaten by the indigenous peoples. The fruit also provides food for birds and wildlife. "Chrysolepis" is related to the subtropical southeast Asian genus "Castanopsis" (in which it was formerly included), but differs in the nuts being triangular and fully enclosed in a sectioned cupule, and in having bisexual catkins. "Chrysolepis" also differs from another allied genus "Castanea" (chestnuts), in nuts that take 14–16 months to mature (3–5 months in "Castanea"), evergreen leaves and the shoots having a terminal bud. There are two species of "Chrysolepis" — "Chrysolepis chrysophylla" and "Chrysolepis sempervirens" — which like many species