Betula occidentalis odorless when scraped. The leaves are alternate, ovate to rhombic, long and broad, with a serrated margin and two to six pairs of veins, and a short petiole up to long. The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins long, the male catkins pendulous, the female catkins erect. The fruit is long and broad, composed of numerous tiny winged seeds packed between the catkin bracts. The identity of similar birches in Alaska is disputed; some include them in "B. occidentalis", while others regard them as hybrids between "Betula neoalaskana" and "Betula glandulosa". Some Plateau Indian tribes used water birch to treat pimples and
Common buzzard Common buzzard The common buzzard ("Buteo buteo") is a medium-to-large bird of prey whose range covers most of Europe and extends into Asia. Over much of its range, it is resident year-round, but birds from the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere typically migrate south (some well into the Southern Hemisphere) for the northern winter. The first formal description of the common buzzard was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his "Systema Naturae" under the binomial name "Falco buteo". The genus "Buteo" was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in