326 DECIlfnOnSTBEES. 



The leaves expand later than the maples and horse-chestnuts, 

 and earlier than those of the oak or hickory. They are small, 

 oval-accuminate, serrated, thin, wavy, dark, and glossy, and so 

 thickly set on the branches, that its shade is the darkest of all the 

 forest trees. ' They have the same fault, however, as those of the 

 white oak, of remaining on the tree, dead and dry, during the 

 winter and spring. This quality, though it makes the beech less 

 desirable as a lawn tree, when it mars the tender verdure of spring 

 grass by dropping its second crop of dead leaves, is, nevertheless, 

 rather an interesting feature in winter, — the gathering of snow 

 upon the dead foliage often producing most picturesque effects. 

 We agree with Downing " that a deciduous tree should as certainly 

 drop its leaves at the approach of cold weather, as an evergreen 

 should retain them," and offer this mitigating beauty as a partial 

 apology for the one bad habit of the family. 



The roots of the beech grow close under the surface of the 

 ground, and in old forests the radiation of their huge gnarled 

 masses around the base of the trunk, is most picturesque. The 

 poet Gray thus happily describes them : — 



" There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 



TJuU wreathes its old fantastic roots so hiffk. 

 His listless length at noontide he would stretch. 

 And pore upon the brook that babbled by." 



In the famous old beech forest of the Hague in Belgium, this 

 curious ramification of the great roots is one of the most interest- 

 ing features of the place ; and in the wonderfully picturesque old 

 forest of Fontainebleau, the grand old beech trees that wreathe their 

 roots among the rocks which they seem to love, add greatly to the 

 air of weird antiquity that pervades this ancient hunting-ground of 

 the French kings. 



The wild species of the beech are not numerous ; but the varie- 

 ties of the European beech, Fagus sylvaticus, introduced by culti- 

 vators and tree-fanciers are some of the most peculiar of trees. 



The American White Beech. Fagus americana. — This, the 

 loftiest and most common native species, together with its com- 

 panion the red beech, F. ferruginea, which forms a lower and more 



