Papyrifera:  Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species.   found in forests, hillsides or dry bogs; NOT just along streams trees; NOT shrubs bark of trunk papery, separable into thin layers white or silvery gray bark; NOT reddish or brown bark leaves mostly 4-8 cm long; NOT mostly less than 5 cm long leaves usually doubly serrate; NOT simply serrate or crenate leaves indistinctly reticulate; NOT distinctly reticulate wings usually broader than the nutlet; NOT narrower than the nutlet

 

Betula: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus.  staminate flowers usually three in the axils of the catkin bracts; NOT solitary in the axils of the catkin bracts stamens 2; NOT 4 pistillate catkins elongated; pistillate flowers NOT in a short, bud-like catkin; pistillate flowers NOT few bracts of pistillate catkins thin, 3-lobed, deciduous; NOT becoming thick and woody, NOT persistent fruit a winged nutlet in the axil of a catkin bract; NOT a nut enclosed in a leafy, hispid involucre nutlets mostly broadly winged; NOT wingless, NOT narrow-winged, NOT with leathery margins

 

Betulaceae: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family. shrubs or trees male flowers, at least, in catkins or aments styles 2; NOT 3 seeds WITHOUT tuft of hairs fruit NOT an acorn