The first time I saw birch trees was many years ago, when I was on a postdoctoral fellowship in the United Kingdom and attended an IFCC Congress in Denmark. They were isolated silver birch planted as ornamental trees in gardens or parks. The yellow leaves quivering in the autumn wind and the unusual silvery white trunks with dark markings made me stop for a long while during my strolls to admire their beauty. They left a long-lasting impression on me. Later, during my travels to China, the view of large numbers of white birch trees in a forest is even more attractive and impressive. Large forests of white birch tree (Betula platyphylla Suk) are found in the northern part of China, Kazakstan, Siberia, Russia, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. In China, such forests are located in the mountainous regions of Xinjiang Uygur and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions and in the provinces of Henan, Shanxi, Ningxia, Ganshu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunan, and Tibet. White birch trees are characterized by white tree trunks with irregular horizontal black stripe markings and lenticels. They prefer moist soil and grow up to nearly 30 meters in height. In Xinjiang, horses and donkeys are a common mode of travel and transportation, as many of the outlying villages are accessible only on horseback or by donkey-drawn cart.
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