See Map: I, 3-10 
EUROPEAN BEECH 
Fagus sylvatica ‘Atropunicea’ 
The Missouri native American beech 
(Fagus grandifolia) and the European 
beech (Fagus sylvatica) are both fre- 
quently encountered in eastern North 
America. The European beech differs 
from the American species by having 
much smaller teeth on the leaves, larger 
nuts, and fuzzy, flat-colored (vs. shiny 
and nearly hairless) winter buds. Far 
more common in cultivation, the Euro- 
pean species comes in an array of 
ornamental cultivars, including purple- 
weeping ('Purpureo-pendula’), deep 
purple (‘Riversii'), copper ('Atro- 
punicea’), tricolor (with three-toned leaves; 'Roseo-marginata’), fastigiate 
(with dense, upright branches; 'Dawyckii’), cut-leaf ('‘Asplenifolia’), 
weeping ('Pendula’), and yellow/ green ('Zlatia'). Many selections grace 
the grounds of the Garden (listed in the map key). 
Despite the prominence of purplish European beeches in landscaping, 
only about four such individual trees are recorded in the wild. Probably 
all of the cultivated purple, copper, and tricolor beeches descend from a 
single wild tree in Germany. 
Among the most noble wild and cultivated trees, beeches have light 
gray “elephant skin” bark, massive branches with the lower ones some- 
times hanging to the ground, and majestic silhouettes with dense, spread- 
ing crowns. Depending on the cultivar, isolated beeches grow into broad, 
dominating splendor; or groups of beeches can be grown tightly clustered 
as screens and hedges that can be pruned to perfection. A European 
beech hedge in Perthshire, Scotland, dating back to 1745, is 580 yards long 
and 95 feet tall. Another Scottish hedge of Fagus sylvatica was planted in 
1715, when the workers were suddenly called to battle. They set the trees 
in the ground on a slant for “temporary” storage but never came back, 
and the mature trees still lean. 
Beech nuts are good to eat, if a little troublesome. In France and else- 
where, beech nut oil is a delicacy, and it once fueled lamps. Roasted 
beech nuts are still used as a coffee substitute. Pigs like the nuts too, and 
those with fine breeding find truffles, which are gourmet-esteemed edible 
fungi that grow underground on European beech roots. The pigs unwit- 
tingly help human truffle-hunters sniff out the prizes. 
14 
aes 
Winter Summer 
