Betula gynoterminalis Y.C.Hsu & C.J.Wang

Betula gynoterminalis is a very distinct, taxonomically isolated species with a unique combination of characters and no close relatives, placed in its own subgenus by Skvortsov (2002). As far as is known, it is not in cultivation, and is known from a single specimen in the herbarium at Kunming, collected near Gongshan Xian in northwest Yunnan in 1956. It is reported to grow in mixed broadleaved forest at approx. 2600 m, at Drungzu Nuzu Zizhixian near Gongshan, east of Lijiang, northwest Yunnan.

The type description (Hsu & Wang 1983) includes a drawing of the Gongshan specimen showing a second-year twig with three lateral spur shoots each bearing one or two very broadly elliptic, clearly rather leathery, ribbed leaves, perhaps most resembling those of Betula calcicola but larger, very hairy on the underside, with 16–18 pairs of raised veins beneath. The four terminal fruiting catkins are more or less stalk-less and borne very close together at the end of the twig. In no other species of birch are terminal clusters of female catkins found, though of course, since only one specimen of this species is known, though it cannot be excluded that this might represent an abberant state (as has been occasionally observed in B. medwediewii and B. insignis). The narrow-winged nutlet and fruiting catkin scale depicted clearly resemble those of Betula delavayi in size and shape and, when taken together with the leathery leaves with indented veins and dense indumentum, suggest that B. gynoterminalis is a member of section Asperae subsection Asperae, probably most closely related to B. delavayi and B. calcicola.