112 BOTANY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
north, though of little value for its wood. The Beech (Fagus ferru- 
ginea) abounds, and though long held a variety of the European 
F. sylvatica, is, I think, unquestionably distinct. It is a handsomer. 
tree than ours,* with much larger, longer, more pointed or even aeu- 
minate leaves, nearly as strongly serrated as those of the Chestnut, of 
the aspect of which the tree so strongly partakes, that I have repeat- 
edly been deceived by the young Beeches in the woods into the belief 
that they must be Chestnuts, and that in parts of the country where 
the latter are not found wild, as about Quebec. The American wood- 
men profess to distinguish two kinds of Beech, the red and the white, 
guided chiefly by the colour of the wood in both; hence arose 4 
second species, the F. ferruginea of Aiton, now applied by my friend 
Dr. Torrey to the only known species inhabiting America, where it has 
a very extensive range from north to south. Michaux (N. American. 
Sylva) figures two species, one which he calls F. sylvestris, meaning. 
probably F. sylvatica of Linn., having fruit small like the European 
Beech, with erect prickles, and nuts somewhat obtuse and mucronate 
at the apex, which, he says, is the common Beech of the middle and 
western States; the other, which he styles (after Muhlenberg) F. ferru- 
ginea, the fruit of which is much larger, and, as drawn by him, scaly, 
with the prickles pointing herd and the nuts acute or pointed. 
‘This kind he states to be abundant in the north and north-western 
section of the Union, and, as represented in his fine work on the forest 
trees of North America, has leaves still more serrated or chestnut-like 
than the first.t The degree of serrature assuredly varies in different 
leaves, but they are always larger, less elliptical, and more pointed than 
in the European tree, however they may occasionally approach those of 
F.sylvatica in form. I cannot find any material difference in the fruit or 
its envelopes, except that the nuts are a little shorter and broader in the 
American than in the European Beech ; the involucres in both are clothed 
with ferrugineous down, as are ikonie the strongly curved prickles. 
* The superiority in point of beauty between nearly allied American and European 
species is not always on the side of the former. The common Holly of Ai 
(Ilex opaca) is greatly inferior in this respect to T. Aquifolium, as are Cervius Cana 
densis and Doe Vi ed rego he their Old Mord congeners, c. Siquasirum 4 ad 
D. Lotus, betwi 
It is BEALE ES that Micha 
Es one most allied to the Pieter x bs F ferruginea (perma T 
and description of the same s F. sylvestris, or White 
Beec me 
confusion in his account of these tree: ti; there is so 
er 
