Birch leaf
Common or white birch; silver birch, Betula pendula Roth, and downy birch, Betula pubescens, Grieve’s Betula alba; French bouleau; in pharmacy Betulae folium
- Known today as
- The leaf of the silver and downy birches, trees of Europe from Sicily to Iceland and of northern Asia. Grieve describes the young branches as rich red-brown or orange-brown and the trunks usually white, the downy birch darker with downy instead of warty twigs, and the leaves with “a peculiar, aromatic, agreeable odour and a bitter taste.” Culpeper saw the leaves “like the beech leaves, but smaller and greener, and dented about the edges.”
- Kind
- Plant, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- hyperoside, proanthocyanidins, chlorogenic acid, and 1 more
- Earliest authority here
- Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online · GBIF · Wikidata
Caution. Not for anyone allergic to birch pollen, nor where a reduced fluid intake is recommended, as in severe heart or kidney disease, nor for children under twelve, for want of data. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and allergic reactions have been reported. Fever, painful urination, spasms, or blood in the urine call for a doctor.
Birch leaf: what was it used for?
A tea for the kidneys and the joints. Birch tea, Grieve says, was given “in gout, rheumatism and dropsy, and recommended as a reliable solvent of stone in the kidneys,” and a decoction bathed skin eruptions; the oil of birch tar, distilled from the bark, was used for eczema, and the spring sap was diuretic. Culpeper made it “a tree of Venus,” and its young leaves’ juice, or the water drawn from the tree bored with an auger, “available to break the stone in the kidneys and bladder.”
Birch leaf: what does modern science say?
The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the leaf as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” to increase the amount of urine and so flush the urinary tract, as an adjuvant in minor urinary complaints (monograph of 2014). Its assessment report finds 1 to 3.5 per cent flavonol glycosides, chiefly hyperoside, with proanthocyanidins, triterpenes, and a little essential oil. No trial of the leaf was among the sources read for this entry.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- hyperoside ChEMBLchief of the flavonol glycosides, which make up 1 to 3.5 per cent of the leaf
- proanthocyanidinspolymeric, 39 mg per gram in the silver birch
- chlorogenic acid ChEMBLwith caffeic acid
- triterpene alcoholsof the dammarene type, with their malonyl esters
- Mechanism
- Not established in the sources read for this entry.
- Standing
- European Union herbal monograph (2014): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” to flush the urinary tract in minor urinary complaints.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Betulae folium (Birch Leaf). EMA/HMPC/573241/2014, 24 November 2014. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Betulae folium. EMA/HMPC/573240/2014, 24 November 2014. Read in part · the text read
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Birch leaf: what lore surrounds it?
The name, Grieve says, is very old, perhaps from Sanskrit bhurga, “a tree whose bark is used for writing upon,” and Coleridge called the birch “the ‘Lady of the Woods.’” Its bark gave the oil that scents Russia leather and keeps books bound in it from mould; its sap, drawn in March, was fermented with honey, cloves, and lemon peel into birch wine; and its cheap soft wood made bobbins, herring-barrel staves, and broom handles. In Lapland, she adds, the seeds of the dwarf birch are a principal food of the ptarmigan.
Birch leaf: what did the older authorities say?
- Nicholas Culpeper
- “It is a tree of Venus,” growing in woods, a tall straight tree with slender branches bending downward. Any of its waters “being drank for some days together, is available to break the stone in the kidneys and bladder, and is good also to wash sore mouths.”
Sources
- Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal, “Birch, Common.” As published on botanical.com. Read in full · the text read
- Culpeper, N. The Complete Herbal, “The Birch Tree.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. Read in part · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Betulae folium (Birch Leaf). EMA/HMPC/573241/2014, 24 November 2014. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Betulae folium. EMA/HMPC/573240/2014, 24 November 2014. Read in part · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Sources
- 4 cited: 2 read in full, 2 read in part.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Club members can point at a technical term in this entry, such as a constituent, an action, or a word of Jung’s, to read its definition from the source. The Club.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published October 16, 2026
- Chicago
“Birch leaf.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 16, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/birch-leaf.
- MLA
“Birch leaf.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 16 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/birch-leaf. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Birch leaf. (2026, October 16). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/birch-leaf
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See Also
Sharing hyperoside, proanthocyanidins, chlorogenic acid
Crataegus monogyna · Drosera rotundifolia · Prunus spinosa · Pelargonium sidoides · Uncaria tomentosa · Paullinia cupana · Coffea arabica · Helichrysum arenarium
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Bistort in Nicholas Culpeper · Bilberry in Nicholas Culpeper · Bean pod in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Drawing on the same sources: Grieve, Culpeper
Nearby in the alphabet
Birch polypore (A white bracket of dead birch) · Bezoar stone (A concretion formed in the stomach of goats and other animals) · Betony (Betonica officinalis) · Bergamot
Historical description, not medical advice.
