On today’s show we learn about the Murray Birch, a critically endangered small tree, native to middle North America, specifically southeastern Michigan and southern Ontario.
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A note on accuracy: I strive for it! These episodes are well-researched and built from scholarly sources, hoping to provide an informed and accurate portrait of these species. That said, I’m an ambient musician! I am not an academic and have limited scientific background. I may get things wrong! If you are using this podcast for scholarship of any kind, please see the cited sources and double-check all information.
Transcripts
Intro:
Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.
On today’s show we consider the Murray Birch.
Species Information:
Betula murrayana, commonly known as the Murray Birch, is a critically endangered small tree, native to middle North America, specifically southeastern Michigan and southern Ontario.
The Murray Birch is a small tree that typically reaches heights of 20-50 feet with several slender, upright trunks.
Unlike many birches, the Murray’s bark does not peel or flake. Instead, it has a smooth, reddish-gray color with horizontal lenticels across the bark's surface. Lenticels are a porous tissue of intercellular gaps between cells that appear as elevated lines or patches on the tree’s trunk and branches. Lenticels allow gasses to pass between the atmosphere the trees internal systems
The leaves of the Murray Birch are notably larger and broader than other birch’s with an ovate shape and serrated edges. Leaf coloration follows the typical seasonal patterns of birch, with vibrant greens in spring and summer, transitioning to yellows in autumn.
The Murray Birch is deciduous, meaning that it loses all of its leaves for part of the year, roughly November-April.
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In the dream, we see the birch at rest over the long winter months, the thin slanted sunlight of short days, and the branches barren, long shadows across the drifts. The forest sleeps, a sovereignty of graphite and white. A held breath, long and low, and the unseen mechanics of lifemaking slowed but steady. And then the nights begin to get shorter and then there is the idea of budding and then the suggestion of stem and then the wintergreen scent of growing and renewal and then sudden, a rich green unfurling of sharp small leafy teardrops. And the lines of trunk and branches, yesterday so structural and well-defined, take on the obscuring garments of photosynthesis, light drinking, quickening in the springtime sun, and the long held breath released in chorus a ballad of resurgence and fertility, a birch-tuned song in the dream.
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Like other birch species, the Murray Birch is monoecious, meaning both male and female sex organs occur on the same individual, located at different places on the plant. On birch’s these present as catkins, which are thin, short, cylindrical flower clusters. The male catkins grow to about an inch in length and hang downward from the tree’s branches, the female catkins are slightly smaller and grow upright from the branches ends.
They are pollinated by the wind, and then the female flowers ripen in late summer and early autumn, containing hundreds of tiny seeds, also dispersed by the wind.
The Murray Birch is believed to have originated from a natural hybridization event between the purpus birch and the yellow birch resulting in a new species with distinctive characteristics.
The Murray Birch is native to the hardwood swamps of southern Michigan and southern Ontario. These are forested wetland whose canopy is typically dominated by silver and red maple, and green and black ash trees. Water levels fluctuate annually with standing water typical in winter and spring. The soil is loamy atop a clay base. Temperatures range from lows in the teens in the winter to highs in the 80s in the summer. Average rainfall is roughly 37 inches per year.
The Murray Birch shares its hardwood swamp with beaver, wood fern, hawk, salamander, goldenrod, sycamore, turtle, elderberry, osprey, cardinal flower, and many others.
Threats to Murray Birch include quite simply its small population size in an already overdeveloped region. And the threat of a warming ecosystem due to human induced climate change.
As for conservation: The Holden Arboretum and the Matthaei Botanical Gardens both in southeastern MI have successfully propagated the Murray Birch from seed and cuttings. No other additional conservation actions are currently in place.
ically Endangered Red List in:
It’s estimated that there are less than 25 Murray Birch trees left in the wild, and there may only be one.
Michigan Natural Features Inventory at the Michigan State University - https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/species/description/13702/Betula-murrayana
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betula_murrayana
Music:
Pledge:
I honor the resilient lifeforce of the Murray Birch. Though I know not its language, I endeavor to hold its name, soft on my tongue. I am grateful to have shared time on our small bright planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species.
And so, in the name of the Murray Birch I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to name and resist the harm of any kin or their habitat, by corporations and governments.
I pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, and to the total liberation of all beings.
