24 
seeds.? 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
CUPULIFER. 
Tar obtained by distillation from the wood of the European Fagus sylvatica is valued in the 
manufacture of creosote,? and has been used in the treatment of pulmonary diseases.’ 
The northern species of Fagus have long been used to decorate the parks and gardens of the 
United States and Europe, and many curious forms of the European Beech with colored or laciniately 
cut leaves, or with pendulous branches, have been multiplied by gardeners." 
In North America Fagus is generally exempt from the ravages of disfiguring insects® and destruc- 
tive fungal diseases.° 
made from the husked seeds is free from it. (See Cornevin, Des 
Plantes Vénéneuse, 137.) Tar of Beech-wood sometimes causes in- 
flammation of the skin. (See J.C. White, Dermatitis Venenata, 147.) 
1 Beech-oil is manufactured in several European countries al- 
though principally in France, the forest of Compiegne being the 
chief seat of this industry. The ripe fruit is shaken down from 
the trees upon cloths spread to receive it, and is then sorted ; the 
best nuts are selected, slightly dried, and crushed to break the shells, 
which are removed from the mass by fanning ; the kernels are 
pounded in troughs ‘into a paste which is put in a bag and subjected 
to pressure, and the oil which escapes is poured into broad pans and 
allowed to deposit the mucilaginous matter which it contains, and 
is then ready for use. About one gallon of oil is obtained from a 
bushel of nuts, and as much as twenty-two gallons have been obtained 
from a single tree. Beech-oil is of a clear yellow color and pos- 
sesses a slight flavor. It is principally employed to adulterate 
olive-oil, and is sometimes used in cooking instead of butter, in the 
manufacture of soap, and for illuminating purposes. ‘The refuse 
left after the extraction of the oil is made into coarse bread or 
serves as food for cattle (Spons, Encyclopedia of Industrial <rts, 
Manufactures, and Raw Commercial Products, ii. 1378. — Kew Bull. 
Miscellaneous Information, July, 1894, 218). 
2 Fliickiger & Hanbury, Pharmacographia, 564. 
8 Baillon, Traité Bot. Méd. 1011. 
4 The most distinct and generally cultivated variety of Fagus 
sylvatica is the Purple or Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica foliis atro- 
rubentibus, Muenchhausen, Hausv. v. 162 [1770]. — Du Roi, Harbk. 
Baumz. i. 268. Fagus sylvatica, B purpurea, Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 
362 [1789]. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii. 1950). This tree is distin- 
guished by deep red-purple or copper-colored leaves and purplish 
branchlets. Individual trees of this variety have appeared at dif- 
ferent times in the forests of Europe. Wagner, in the Historia 
Naturalis Helvetie Curiosa, published in 1680, speaks of three 
Beech-trees with red leaves growing in a wood in Zurichgau. 
Twenty-six years later Scheuzer (Beschreibung der Natur-Geschichten 
des Schweizerlandes, pt. i. 2) gives a more detailed account of this 
tree, repeating the popular legend that the red-leaved Beech-trees 
sprang up in a forest where five brothers had murdered each 
other. A purple-leaved Beech derived from the trees of the forest 
of Buch was cultivated in a garden of the canton of Zurich before 
1763, when Ott’s Dendrologie was published ; on page 245 of this 
work this cultivated tree and the group of trees in the neighboring 
forest are mentioned. Most of the Purple Beeches now in culti- 
vation, however, are probably derived from a tree of this variety 
discovered in the last century in the Hanleiter Forest near Son- 
dershausen in Thuringia, which is supposed to be about two hun- 
dred years old and is still alive. (See Lutze, Mittheilungen des 
Thuringer Botanischen Vereines, 1892, pt. ii. 28 [Zur Geschichte und 
Kultur der Blutbuchen]. — Jaggi, Gartenflora, xlii. 150 [Zur Ge- 
schichte der Blutbuche].— Garden and Forest, vii. 2 [The Origin of 
the Purple Beech].) 
The Weeping Beech, a variety of Fagus sylvatica, with long 
pendulous branches which form a broad-based pyramidal tree, is 
also frequently planted; and several Beeches with pendulous 
branches differing slightly in habit are now propagated in nurse- 
ries. The first to attract attention appears to have been found in 
Great Britain, and Loudon (i. c. 1952) refers to individuals of this 
variety which were probably planted at the end of the eighteenth 
century. 
The Fern-leaved or Cut-leaved Beech (Fagus sylvatica, hetero- 
phylla, Loudon, 1. c. 1951, f. 1875, 1876), a form in which the leaves 
are more or less laciniately cut and divided, is also often found in 
collections of curious trees. It is probably of British origin, and 
has been cultivated for nearly a century. 
5 Although several species of insects feed on the Beech in North 
America, it is less seriously injured by them than many other 
American trees. The hymenopterous Tremer Columba, Linneus, 
is common in the trunks, and several species of Coleoptera some- 
times damage the stems and branches. Goes pulverulentus, Halde- 
man, bores into large branches and does considerable injury to the 
trees. Larve of species of Dicerca, Chrysobothris, and of other 
beetles are also frequently found in the trunk, although some of 
them do not attack the wood until it has begun to decay. 
Among foliage-eating insects the Fall Web-worm is sometimes 
conspicuous on the Beech ; the Forest Tent-caterpillar, Clisiocampa 
disstria, Hiibner, also occurs upon it ; and other species of leaf- 
The 
larva of Eccopsis fagigemmeana, Chambers, lives in a case formed 
eating Lepidoptera are frequent although not very abundant. 
of the bud-scales and feeds upon the leaves, and Cryptolechia 
JSaginella, Chambers, fastens the leaves together with silken threads. 
Plant-lice and scale insects belonging to such genera as Schizoneura 
and Aspidiotus are occasionally plentiful on the Beech, although 
more noticeable on cultivated trees than on those in the forest. 
The fruit is often infested by weevils. 
6 The North American Beech-tree is the favorite home of a 
large number of fungi. This is especially true of trees in northern 
and mountainous districts, where the fallen trunks are attacked by 
many characteristic species of great interest to mycologists. It 
cannot be said, however, that the Beech suffers in North America 
It is one of the healthiest trees of the 
American forest, and the fungi which grow upon it are rather 
saprophytes than true parasites. 
from any specific disease. 
Scorias spongiosa, Fries, which 
produces spongy excrescences often of considerable size, is not 
infrequently seen on its trunk. This fungus belongs to the group 
of species which are not strictly parasitic on the trees and shrubs 
upon which they are found, but follow the attacks of insects on 
whose excrescences or remains they grow; but whether Scorias 
spongiosa grows on insect exudations or is really parasitic on the 
Beech itself has not yet been determined. 
Of the many Pyrenomycetes found on Beech-trunks, Hypozylon 
turbinulatum, Berkeley, is the most characteristic. It appears in the 
form of black cushions, so numerous that they are confluent at 
times and extend over the trunks in patches several feet long. 
Nemaspora crocea, Persoon, is a common parasite, forming on the 
