Unique Features: Whitespire is a cultivar of grey birch; there was some confusion about the name when it was introduced in 1983 but for now it’s a grey birch.  It was selected for its resistance to the bronze birch borer and this trait is passed on when the tree is vegetatively propagated and named ‘Whitespire Senior’.  When trees are grown from the seeds of the original Whitespire birch then they are named ‘Whitespire Junior’.  All birches start with brown colored bark which exfoliates, peels off, to expose white bark and many keep exfoliating the white bark but the Whitespire stops exfoliating after it turns white; this is important if you like a tidy tree.  As with other non-native birches this does best on a northern or eastern exposure with consistent moisture and consistent winter watering, a mulched planting area helps.