The Beech 



Phebe Bird 



Its beautiful trunk alone is sufficient to identify the beech. 

 No other tree is so smooth and round, and the quaker gray bark 

 is unmistakable ; it is often dappled in varying shades, but always 

 gray and never marred by seams or corrugations. The bark is 

 thin, hard, and closely knit, being less than a half-inch in thickness 

 even on large trees. The slender, wide-spreading branches are 

 also round and smooth and graceful but darker in color than the 

 trunk, while the numberless small branches and twigs are darker 

 still, those of the past season's growth being a glossy reddish 

 brown. 



The leaf -scars are alternate, but often the leaves themselves 

 cling to the tree till late in the winter and can be studied nearly 

 as well as in their summer greenness. They are very thin, smooth 

 and silken, oblong, pointed, with very short stems, and stand 

 out horizontally from the twig, so that it is no wonder that the 

 beech in summer is the best of shelter, both in sun and shower; 

 for its shade is very dense and it yields more slowly to the penetra- 

 tion of the rain than any other tree. The veins spring straight 

 from the mid-rib to the small sharp teeth at the edge of the leaf. 

 In spite of their delicate fineness the leaves are very strong and 

 firm. 



Often the four-lobed spiny burs cling to the twigs till late in 

 the winter, and still show where the bases of the two triangular 

 nuts rested. 



The winter buds show just above the ring of leaf-scars, or 

 the leaves themselves if they still remain. They are long, slim, 

 smooth and pointed, their many scales very tightly folded, shining 

 like silk, and of a lighter brown than the twig which bears them. 

 Like all the rest of the tree they have an expression of delicacy 

 and strength combined. 



In the spring, the scales of the leaf-buds lengthen as they 

 unfold and drop away, each leaving a tiny scar at the base of 

 the shoot like the thread on a little screw. Within, each leaf 

 has a pair of scales to protect it and these do not fall away till the 

 leaf is grown but cling to the stem like brown needles. The new 

 leaves are softly fuzzy on the ribs and under surface and seem to 



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