22 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
CUPULIFER. 
plicate and somewhat united, in germination epigzous, foliaceous and spreading ; radicle minute, 
° e . e 1 
superior, exserted ; hilum minute, apical. 
Fagus is now confined to temperate regions, where in the northern hemisphere it grows in eastern 
North America, over nearly the whole of Europe, on the mountains of Asia Minor and northern Persia, 
and in northern and central China and Japan, while in the southern hemisphere it inhabits the Chilian 
Andes, southern Patagonia, New Zealand, and the mountains of Australia. F ifteen or sixteen species 
are known ;2 one species inhabits eastern America, and one Europe,’ western Asia, China, and Japan ; * 
three are endemic to Australia;® four are found in New Zealand;° and five occur in the forests which 
spread over the mountains and cover the shores of southern Chili and Tierra del Fuego.’ The type is 
1 By Bentham & Hooker (Gen. iii. 440) the species of Fagus are 
grouped in the following sections : — 
Evuracus. Heads of staminate flowers globose, many-flowered, 
long-stalked ; styles elongated, pilose, stigmatic on the inner face 
toward the apex only ; young leaves plicate at the veins. Inhabit- 
ants of the northern hemisphere. 
NornoraGus. Heads of staminate flowers 1 to 3-flowered, short- 
stalked or subsessile ; styles short, often broad, stigmatic over the 
inner surface ; young leaves not plicate. Inhabitants of western 
and antarctic South America, New Zealand, and Australia. 
2 A. de Candolle, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 117. 
8 Fagus sylvatica, Linneus, Spec. 998 (1753). — Hornemann, FV. 
Dan. viii. t. 1283. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 80, t. 24. — Smith & Sow- 
erby, English Bot. xxvi. t. 1846.— Hartig, Forst. Culturpjl. Deutschl. 
154, t. 20, t. 103, f. 6.— Reichenbach, Jcon. Fl. German. xii. 6, t. 
639. — A. de Candolle, J. c. 118. — Parlatore, Fl. Ital. iv. 165. — 
Willkomm & Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hispan. i. 247. — Boissier, Fi. 
Orient. iv. 1175. — Laguna, Fl. Forestal Espafiola, pt. i. 194, t. 27. — 
Hempel & Wilhelm, Baume und Stréucher, ii. 41, f. 145, 146, t. 20. 
Castanea Fagus, Scopoli, Fl. Carn. ed. 2, ii. 242 (1772). 
Fagus sylvestris, Gertner, Fruct. i. 182, t. 37 (1788). 
Fagus echinata, Gilibert, Exercit. Phyt. ii. 396 (1792). 
Fagus sylvatica is one of the common forest trees of temperate 
Europe, where it is distributed from southern Norway and Sweden 
to the shores of the Mediterranean ; it ascends the Swiss Alps to 
elevations of about five thousand feet above the sea-level, and in 
southern Europe is usually confined to high mountain slopes, often 
marking the upper limits of forest growth ; it abounds in southern 
Russia and in the forests that cover the lower slopes of the moun- 
tains of the Caucasus, and is widely distributed in Asia Minor and 
the northern provinces of Persia. A large and fast-growing al- 
though not a long-lived tree, the Beech has been cultivated in 
Europe for more than three centuries, at first for the food which 
its sweet oily seeds afforded to deer and swine, and then as a 
Enduring a great amount of shade, it has been found 
Eu- 
ropean foresters use it largely in this way, especially on limestone 
timber-tree. 
a valuable tree to plant under Oaks and Pines in the forest. 
and chalky soils, in which the Beech grows with the greatest vigor, 
cutting it at the end of from eighty to a hundred years when its 
associates in the forests have not advanced more than half way to 
maturity (Burgsdorf, Versuch Gesch. Holzart. i. Die Biche). 
The wood is gray tinged with red, and contains many small 
evenly distributed ducts and numerous often interrupted medullary 
It is 
hard, close-grained, and moderately heavy, although not durable. 
rays which, on a vertical section, appear as shining plates. 
Beech-wood makes excellent fuel and charcoal, and is also used for 
furniture, the handles of tools, the panels of carriages and the keels 
of boats, and for wooden shoes, which in some of the mountainous 
districts of central and southern Europe are made almost exclu- 
sively from this wood. Impregnated with sulphate of copper or 
other preservatives against attack, it has been used advantageously 
for railway ties (Mathieu, Fl. Forestiere, ed. 3, 272). 
Its broad crown and ample lustrous leaves, its smooth pale beau- 
tiful bark, and the delicate spray of its branchlets, make the Beech 
one of the most ornamental inhabitants of European woods and 
parks ; and for more than a hundred years it has adorned the 
plantations of eastern America, where the Willows are the only 
European trees which have shown themselves better able to flourish 
in the severe climate of the northern states. 
4 Fagus sylvatica, var. 8 Sieboldi, Maximowicz, Bull. Acad. Sci. 
St. Pétersbourg, xxxi. 101 (Mél. Biol. xii. 543) (1886). 
Fagus ferruginea, Siebold, Verh. Batav. Genoot. xii. 25 (not 
Aiton) (1830). 
Fagus Sieboldi, Endlicher, Gen. Suppl. iv. pt. ii. 29 (1847). — 
A. de Candolle, J. c. 119. — Franchet & Savatier, Enum. Pl. Jap. 
i, 451. 
Fagus crenata, Blume, Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. i. 307 (1850). 
Fagus sylvatica, y Asiatica, A. de Candolle, J. c. 119 (1864). — 
Franchet & Savatier, J. c. 450. 
In Japan the Beech, which is hardly distinguishable from the 
European tree, is one of the noblest inhabitants of the forest. It 
ranges from the shores of Voleano Bay in southern Yezo, where it 
grows nearly at the sea-level, southward over the mountains of the 
other islands. On those of central Hondo it is the most abundant 
of all deciduous-leaved trees, and one of the largest, often cover- 
ing great areas lying between three and four thousand feet above 
the sea-level with pure forests or those in which it is mingled with 
A second Beech 
with small leaves and small fruit borne on long slender peduncles, 
Oaks, Chestnuts, and scattered Firs and Spruces. 
from the Hakone Mountains and the Province of Nambu, and 
described by Maximowicz (/. c.) as Fagus Japonica, has not been 
seen since it was first collected by Maximowicz’s native servant, 
and is a doubtful species unknown to Japanese botanists. 
In Japan the wood of the Beech is little esteemed or used, and 
the forests of this tree, which usually grow in comparatively inac- 
cessible places, appear to be spreading rather than diminishing 
(Sargent, Forest Fl. Japan, 70). 
5 Hooker f. Fl. Tasman. i. 348.— Bentham, Fl. Austral. vi. 209. 
* Hooker f. Fl. New Zeal. i. 229; Handb. New Zeal. Fl. 249. 
7 Mirbel, Mém. Mus. xiv. 465.— Hooker, Jour. Bot. ii. 153. — 
Hooker f. Fl. Antarct. ii. 345, t. 123, 124.—C. Gay, FT. Chil. v. 
387. — Philippi, Linnea, xxix. 42. 
The dense dark forests which cover the shores of the Straits of 
Magellan and the mountain slopes of Tierra del Fuego are princi- 
pally composed of two Beech-trees, the Evergreen Fagus betuloides 
(Mirbel, 1. c. 469, t. 25 [1827]. — Hooker f. J. c. 349, t. 124.— A. 
de Candolle, Prodr. 1. c. 121) and the deciduous-leaved Fagus 
antarctica (Forster f. Comm. Soc. Gétting. ix. 24 [1789]. — Hooker f. 
l. c. 345, t. 123. — A. de Candolle, J. c. 120). 
Fagus betuloides “forms the prevailing feature of the scenery of 
