Prairie birch (Betula endurabilis) Order: Fagales Family: Birch (Betulaceae) Habitat: Steppes and Prairies of North America For most of the Holocene, birches were able to survive both extinction by human hands, and the climatic cataclysms of the early Neocene, and to give birth to new species... many of which, however, are quite conservative, especially those that grow not in the tropics (like China), but in more temperate climates, such as southern and central Siberia and central North America. One of these trees is the North American prairie birch. Its appearance is typically "birch," rippling, white- (or gray-) black in color. Some areas