168 Eleventh Annual Repobt 



FAGACE^. The Beech Family. 



Trees with watery juice; leaves alternate, pinnately-veined ; flow- 

 ers of two kinds; fruit a 1-seeded nut. This is the most important 

 family of trees occurring in the State. 



Staminate flowers in heads on drooping peduncles; nuts 

 triangular, inclosed in a woody husk armed with re- 

 curved prickles 1 Fagus. 



Staminate flowers in slender catkins; nuts not as above. 

 Nuts inclosed in a woody husk armed with numerous 



straight prickles 2 Castanea. 



Nuts seated in a scaly and woody cup 3 Quercus. 



1. FAGUS. The Beech. 



(From the Greek word phago, to eat^ berauso the nuts were formerly used as food.) 



Trees with pale smooth bark; buds long, acute, chestnut-brown; 

 staminate flowers in globose heads, stamens 8-16, pistillate flowers 

 2-4 in a cluster in the axils of the upper leaves; nuts usually 2 in an 

 oval shell, which opens to discharge the nuts. 



Fagus grandifolia Ehrhart. Beech. Red Beech. White Beech. 

 Yellow Beech. Plate 41. Bark light to a dark gray; twigs red- 

 dish-brown the first year, turning to gray; leaves ovate to oblon^^- 

 ovate, usually rather long taper-pointed, wedge-shaped to cordate 

 at base, regularly and usually minutely serrate, the veins ending in 

 the apex of the teeth, silky when young, at maturity becoming smooth 

 above and nearly so beneath, blade 6-13 cm. (23^-5 inches) long; 

 flowers appear in May; nuts 1-1.5 cm. (^-3/2 inch) long, triangular, 

 reddish-brown, pubescent. 



Distribution. Nova Scotia, Ontario and Wisconsin, south to the 

 Gulf States and west to Texas. Found in all parts of Indiana, 

 though not frequent in the prairie region of the northwestern part 

 of the State. It is frequent to very common in almost all parts of 

 the State on high ground. In point of number it ranks first of 

 Indiana trees. It is usually associated with sugar maple, buckeye, 

 ironwood, white ash, red oak, linden and yellow poplar. Among the 

 hills in the southern part of the State the oak is the dominant stand 

 on the south slope of the hills and the beech the dominant stand on 

 the north side. In Jackson, Scott and some adjacent counties it 

 adapts itself to wetter conditions and is found in the flats associ- 

 ated with sweet gum and pin oak. It grows to be a large tree in 

 our area, reaching a height of 35 m. (115 feet) and a diameter of a 

 meter (39 inches). 



