Betula glandulosa to tall, often forming dense thickets. The trunks are slender, rarely over diameter, with smooth, dark brown bark. The leaves are nearly circular to oval, long and broad, with a toothed margin. The fruiting catkins are erect, long and broad. It is closely related to the dwarf birch ("Betula nana"), and is sometimes treated as a subspecies of it, as "B. nana" subsp. "glandulosa". It is distinguished from typical "B. nana" by the presence of glandular warts on the shoots and longer leaf petioles. Hybrids with several other birches occur. Betula glandulosa Betula glandulosa, the American dwarf birch, also known
Beech bark disease to spread to the south and west. The first case of beech bark disease in the United States was reported in 1929 in Massachusetts. By 2004, the disease had spread as far west as Michigan and as far south as western North Carolina. For beech bark disease to occur, two components are required, an insect and a fungus. The beech scale insect, "Cryptococcus fagisuga", is invasive to North America and is host-specific, feeding exclusively on beech trees. It can be observed on the trunk and limbs of the tree as woolly, white tufts that will later develop into broad strips.