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THE BEECH TREE IN HEREFORDSHIRE. 



BY THE REV. THOMAS WOODHOUSE, M.A. 



The beech is -widely distributed over Herefordshire, but nowhere com- 

 mon, perhaps nowhere indigenous. There is the same difficulty in this as in 

 other cases, in distinguishing between those trees and plants which are the 

 native growth of the country, and those which are but the descendants of 

 cultivated and exotic kinds. 



The difficulty is increased in the case of the beech by the great readiness 

 with which it produces seedlings. Of the countless multitudes of seeds which 

 every beech scatters round it every year, some must germinate ; and those 

 which spring up under favourable circumstances grow fast, and soon produce 

 fresh seeds in their turn. Singularly enough the shade of the beech itself is 

 unfavourable to vegetation ; and consequently no seedlings come to maturity 

 under the spreading branches of the parent tree. But for this, a beech grove 

 would soon become an impenetrable thicket, instead of the cool and " pillared 

 shade " which it is now. 



The only places where I know of anything like a beechen coppice are 

 on limestone soils. There is a wood at Aymestrey, once common, but long 

 enclosed, which has received the name of Beechen Bank, from the abundance of 

 small beeches intermixed throughout it. This is close above the great quarry — 

 a quarry of limestone. And if I remember aright, beech abounds just in the 

 same way on the hill above "Walford, close on the outskirts of the Forest of 

 Dean, also on limestone. 



These two instances occur almost at the opposite extremities of the 

 county ; and it is probably owing to the absence of calcareous soil in other 

 places that beech woods are not more common. 



This is exactly what one might expect. The beech woods in Bucking- 

 hamshire and Hampshire, still very extensive, though much reduced in size, are 

 on the chalk hills, especially where Chiltern 



With his beechen wreaths this king of rivers crowns 

 Amongst his holts and hills as on his way he takes. 



— Drayton. 

 On the Cotswold hills, about Tetbury, beech also thrives abundantly. 



Beeches of great size and beauty, and manifestly planted, are to be 

 found in all parts of Herefordshire. Few trees were so highly valued by our 

 forefathers, or turned to so many uses. Many articles which are now made of 



