Kingdom Plantae Family Betulaceae Scientific name Betula oycoviensis Rank Species | Order Fagales Genus Betula Higher classification Birch | |
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Similar Birch, Betula humilis, Salix silesiaca, Cotoneaster melanocarpus, Spiraea media | ||
Betula oycoviensis is a species of hybrid origin in the Betulaceae family. It is found in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, and Ukraine, and is threatened by habitat loss. It was described in 1809 by Wilibald Swibert Joseph Gottlieb von Besser.
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Origin and taxonomy
B. oycoviensis is a genetic cross of two other species of Betula; B. pendula and B. szaferi, the latter having specimens in a botanic garden, and evidently nowhere else. Rafaël Govaerts, a botanist at Kew Gardens, treats it as a variety of Betula pendula (B. pendula var. oycowiensis).
Habitat and population
The hybrid is found at the margins of forests or birch groves where both parent species have co-occurred in the past, but it is slow in regenerating. The number of localities in Poland known to have had B. oycoviensis growing on them prior to 1998 has rapidly diminished, and Poland's total population is an estimated 350 individual trees.
