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Yellow birch and Ranger's cabin, Biltmore Forest  (North Carolina)

Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis):  Yellow birch is one of the largest hardwoods in its native range which spans from eastern Canada and the Great Lake states to extreme NE Georgia.  An immediate identifier of yellow birch  is the mildly aromatic wintergreen smell of the inner bark and a yellow tint on paper-like bark.

This particular yellow birch is a yard tree next to a Biltmore Forest ranger cabin. The Biltmore Forest was purchased by industrialist George Vanderbilt during the late 19th century along with his castle estate near Ashville, NC.  He hired Dr. Carl Alwen Schenck to manage the forest which was later to be part of the Pisgah NF.

Yellow birch leaves

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