Arctic dwarf birch

Shrubs , procumbent, widely spreading, or upright, to 1 m. Bark dark brown. Twigs sparsely to densely pubescent, dull, without heavy resinous coating, without large, warty, resinous glands. Leaf blade broadly orbiculate or obovate-orbiculate to reniform, 0.8--1.5 × 0.8--2 cm, base rounded or cuneate to nearly cordate; surfaces abaxially sparsely pubescent to glabrous. Infructescences 0.5--1.5 × 0.4--1 cm; scales glabrous, lobes diverging distal to middle, ascending, about equal in length. 2 n = 28.

Flowering late spring. Tundra, open rocky barrens, and scrubs, in Europe subalpine mountain moors; 0--600 m; Greenland; N.W.T.; n Europe.

Betula nana subsp. nana occurs in both eastern and western Greenland at latitudes north of 63 degrees. In Europe, the range of this subspecies extends across the subarctic zone and southward in the Alps and other ranges.