CHAPTER XXV: THE BEECHES 



Family pAGACEyE 



Genus FAGUS, Linn. 



Trees valuable for their timber and nuts, and also for shade 

 and ornamental planting. Leaves simple, alternate, feather 

 veined, deciduous. Flowers monoecious, small, crowded into 

 spikes or heads. Fruit a pair of triangular nuts in a 4-valved bur. 



The great family of the cup bearers includes the beeches, 

 chestnuts and oaks — trees of profound importance to the human 

 race. They are the mast trees, whose fruit has fed man and 

 beast from the days when they both depended upon Nature's 

 bounty. Times have changed, and men have less primitive appe- 

 tites, but their need of these trees is not diminished, but rather 

 broadened with the advance of civilisation. Mast of oak, beech 

 and chestnut remain the chief reliance of many wild animals. 



There are in all five species of beech, three of which are Asiatic, 

 America has one species and Europe one. Two are native to 

 China and Japan. The so-called beeches of the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere form a genus, Nothofagus, of twelve species. They differ 

 in habit and in flowers from Fagus, and the leaves, often ever- 

 green, are very small. Nevertheless, the two genera are closely 

 related. 



Beech {Fagus Americana, Sweet.) — A round-topped or conical 

 tree, with horizontal or drooping branches, and dense foliage; 

 50 to 75 feet high. Bark close, smooth, pale grey, or darker, 

 often blotched; branches grey, twigs brov/n, shining. IVood light 

 red, close grained, hard, strong, not durable, tough; lustrous 

 when polished. Buds alternate, tapering, f to i inch long, brown, 

 in silky scales. Leaves oblong-ovate, strongly feather veined, 

 saw toothed, pointed, smooth, silky or leathery, green on both 

 sides; autumn colour, pale yellow, persistent till late. Flowers 

 monoecious. May, staminate in pendant balls, few at base of leafy 

 shoot, yellow-green; pistillate, solitary or paired, in axils of upper 



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