332 A MANUAL OF EORESTKY. 



12. BEECH. 

 Fagus sylvatica (L.). Cupuliferse. 



Large somewhat spreading tree. No true bark : 

 smooth, grey, thin, ash-grey cortex, usually with lichens 

 and moss on it. 



Young branches olive-green ; long, smooth, pointed, 

 pale brown, scaly buds. "When the buds open in May, 

 these long chaffy scales (stipules) litter the ground. 



Alternate, thin, oval-acute, petiolate leaves ; ciliate and 

 pale green when young, smoother and darker when full 

 grown. Shade dense. 



Male flowers in silky, tassel-like tufts of about 5 to 

 15, on long pendulous stalks, in spring : caducous female 

 flowers in pairs (occasionally three), enclosed in a four- 

 lobed softly hairy involucre, erect, on short stalks. 



Fruit of two three-angled, smooth, brown nuts, falling 

 from the spreading brown and prickly involucre. 



Wood reddish white, with numerous small scattered 

 vessels ; sinuous annual rings, and some of the medul- 

 lary rays broad. 



Seed (enclosed in pericarp) exalbuminous ; cotyledons 

 curiously folded. 



Seedling with long hypocotyl, raising the two large 

 sessile, half-orbicular, tough cotyledons into the air; 

 these cotyledons are green above and almost white 

 below. First leaves like the type. 



