# 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 > **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. ## 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.” ## 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 and toxicology - **hyperoside**: chief of the flavonol glycosides, which make up 1 to 3.5 per cent of the leaf - **proanthocyanidins**: polymeric, 39 mg per gram in the silver birch - **chlorogenic acid**: with caffeic acid - **triterpene alcohols**: of 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. ## 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. ## 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. - Culpeper, N. *The Complete Herbal*, “The Birch Tree.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Betulae folium (Birch Leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/573241/2014, 24 November 2014. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Betulae folium*. EMA/HMPC/573240/2014, 24 November 2014. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Betulae folium (Birch Leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/573241/2014, 24 November 2014. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Betulae folium*. EMA/HMPC/573240/2014, 24 November 2014. --- *Birch leaf.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-16. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/birch-leaf Historical description, not medical advice.