I was surprised to see a red birch offering of some corbels at osbornewood.com. (That would bolt on nicely to a visit in that direction.) I am going to need 4 nice corbels for an island I'm commissioning for a granite customer of mine. The red birch corbel I'm looking at is more than twice the money than the same piece made from cherry or even walnut, I ask: WTF is so special about red birch?
Well, if you check your Latin text, you'll find what you have is "black" birch. Up here they also call it cherry birch. Some say it's a species, some say just a genetic sport of B leutea. Bark gets as black as cherry bark when mature, even breaks up a bit rather than giving that thin peeling look.
It's pink when fresh cut, but when oiled, gets a sort of open-grained cherry look to it. Pretty.
Ah, the unreliability of common names. Betula nigra is usually called River or Red Birch. B. lenta is usually called black or sweet birch (has a wintergreen taste and odor in the twigs) B. leutea is mostly called yellow birch.(my most recent taxonomy source gives the name B. alleghaniensis so scientific names are only a little more reliable).
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