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Mountain alder
Alnus tenuifolia
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 A coarse shrub or small deciduous tree, 2 to 10 metres tall; often occurs in clumps.
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Leaves
Leaves are thin, oval-shaped, and rounded to somewhat heart-shaped towards
the base. The tips are rounded to blunt shaped and the margins are shallowly lobed and
double toothed. The upper surfaces are green, the lower surfaces hairy and pale. |
Flowers
Male flowers are long, drooping catkins, 3 to 4 centimetres in length.
Female flowers are in short, woody, brown cones. They are produced on the previous
season's twigs before the leaves appear. Fruit
Seed cones have very short stalks. The seeds are nutlets with a very
narrow wing. |
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Bark
Yellowish-brown with distinct oval-shaped ruptures or tears on the bark
(lenticels).Where to find mountain
alder
It is common throughout British Columbia east of the Coast and Cascade
mountains, at mid to subalpine elevations. |
Habitat
Mountain alder occurs in moist, nutrient-rich forests along streamsides
and bogs. It often occurs as dense clumps with willows, twinberry, red elderberry, and
horsetails. Deer and hares sometimes eat parts of the stem. |
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Uses
Because of its hardness, some Interior aboriginal people used mountain
alder wood for making bows and snowshoes. Because it doesn't flavour the food, they also
used it for smoking and drying salmon and meat. Like red alder, it was a source of dye and
a substance for tanning hides. The Carrier made fish nets out of mountain alder and dyed
them black by boiling them in their own juice. Fish cannot see the black nets. |
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