14 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



In Italy it is found only in the mountains ; in the Apennines it is one of the 

 dominant trees at from 3000 to 5000 feet. In the Sila mountains of Calabria, Elwes 

 found it covering the mountains above the limit of chestnut, at from 3000 to 5000 feet 

 and upwards. It is usually coppiced for charcoal and firewood ; but it attains a 

 considerable size, the largest measured being about 90 feet by 10-12 in girth. Here 

 it is often mixed with the Calabrian pine. In Sicily it finds its southern limit on 

 Mount Etna, where it ascends to 7200 feet. 



In Spain the beech occurs in the Pyrenees and in the northern provinces only, 

 its most southerly known habitat being in lat 40 10' east of Cuen9a. In Portugal it 

 has not, so far as we know, been recorded to exist. 



The finest natural beech forests seen by us in Europe are on the northern 

 slopes of the Balkans, where it grows as pure forest from near the foot of the 

 mountains up to about 40CK) feet. The trees are very straight and clean, but are 

 being rapidly felled in those places where they are most accessible. Boissier ' says 

 that the beech occurs in northern Greece on Mounts Pindus and Pelion. Elwes 

 found it in Macedonia, on the north side of Mount Olympus.^ 



(A. H. and H. J. E.) 



Cultivation 



Seed is without doubt the best means of reproducing the tree, and I am 

 inclined to think that the best and cleanest trunks are produced by seedlings which 

 have never been transplanted, but opinions differ on this question. Seed is only pro- 

 duced in quantity at intervals of several years, and in some years a large proportion 

 of the seeds, even in districts where the beech grows well, are mere empty husks. 



The season of 1890 was probably the best for beech-mast in England which had 

 occurred for many years, and I took particular pains, by enclosing certain spots where 

 I found a number of germinating seeds in the following April, to protect them. But 

 a severe frost, which occurred in the middle of May, destroyed all or nearly all the 

 seedlings in the open, and those whose germination had been delayed by dense 

 shade, or a thick covering of leaves, mostly withered away in the dry summer which 

 ensued, before their rootlets had become established in the ground. Notwithstanding 

 this, in most woods where rabbits, pheasants, and wood-pigeons are not so abundant 

 as to devour all the seedlings and seeds, a good number of seedling beech of the year 

 1 90 1 may still be found, and in the New Forest and elsewhere the ground in suitable 

 spots is covered with seedlings. 



Whether the seed should be sown when ripe or kept until the following 

 spring is a question which must be decided by local conditions and experience, 

 but where the danger of late spring frosts is great, I should prefer keeping it 

 in an airy, dry loft spread thinly on a floor until April, or even the first week in 

 May, as if February and March are mild, it will germinate in March and run great 

 risk of being frozen in April or May. On March 11, 1901, I found a quantity of 



Flora Orient alis, iv. 1 1 75. 



^ Hal^csy, Consp. Flor. Graca, iiL 124 (1904), says that the beech forms in Greece large woods in the mountains, and 

 gives its distribution as follows : Thessaly Mountains of Pindus, Chassia, Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion ; Acarnania Mount 

 Kravara ; /Etolia Mount Oxyes. 



