T 



BEECH 



(Fagus Atropunicea) 



I HERE is only one beech in the United States, and four or five in 



Europe and Asia. The southern portion of South America has 

 several species which usually pass for beech. One or more of them are 

 evergreen. Old world species are sometimes planted in parks and ceme- 

 teries in this country, but as forest trees they have no importance in the 

 United States and probably never will have. It becomes a simple 

 matter, therefore, to deal with the tree in this country. It is alone, and 

 has no nearer relatives than the chestnuts, chinquapins, and the oaks, 

 all of which are members of the same family, and the beech gives the 

 name to the family Fagacece. The blue beech, which is common in 

 most states east of the Mississippi river and in some west, is not a 

 member of the same family, though it looks enough like beech to be 

 closely related to it. 



The name has come down from remote antiquity. It is one of the 

 oldest names in use. Ic is said to have descended through thousands 

 of years from old Aryan tribes of Asia which were among the earliest 

 to use a written language. For the want of better material, they cut the 

 letters on beech bark, and a piece of such writing was called "boc." It 

 was but a step from that word to book a collection of writings. Both 

 beech and book came from the same word "boc" and the connection 

 between them is very evident. The pronunciation has been little 

 changed by the Germanic races during thousands of years, but the 

 Romans translated it into Latin and called it "liber," from which we 

 have the word library. Doubtless in very ancient times, say 5,000 years 

 before the building of Solomon's temple, the libraries beyond the 

 Euphrates river consisted of several cords of trimmed and lettered beech 

 bark. Such material being perishable, it has wholly disappeared. The 

 matter is not now directly connected with the lumber interests, but it 

 increases one's respect for beech to know how important a part it must 

 have played in the ancient world, whereby it stamped its name so 

 indelibly upon the language of the most intelligent portion of the human 

 race. 



The word buckwheat has. the same origin. It means beech wheat, 

 so named because the grains are triangular like beech nuts. The tree is 

 always known as beech in this country, though it may have a qualifying 

 word such as red, white, ridge. 



It usually grows in mixed forests of hardwoods, but it b often 

 found in the immediate presence of hemlock and spruce, grows from 



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