On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:00:35 +0100, David in Normandy wrote:

Are there different varieties?

I've just been looking out the window at the rain and wind
and noticed two of our mature silver birch trees look a bit
different. One has fine twigs that cascade downwards from
the branches and the other has erect twigs. Both trees are
multi-stem and around 50 feet tall.

Looking out of my window, one of my neighbour's silver birches has droopy twigs on the
leeward side and upright twigs on the windy side. The droopy twigs are not wind-blown
oddities like one sees on the edge of moors, but delicate and seem to have blobs on the
end which remind me of tiny cones (I am some way off) where the upright ones have no blobs
on the ends.

Kath