Betula utilis

This lovely birch at Arduaine was grown from seed which I collected near the yak-herding village of Ghunsa, in East Nepal, in 1990. Ghunsa lies at 3,400 metres so the tree is very hardy. You can see in the upper part of the picture how the light filters through the flaking bark. The whole trunk was like that until a visiting Mum assisted her toddler in peeling all the bark off, lifting him up gradually as he cleaned off the trunk. I was quite angry with her, but she seemed totally unfazed. I asked her not to bring him back when he was a teenager!

The original tree in Ghunsa was swathed in sheets of peeling bark and was a wonderful sight!