DECIDUOUS TREES. 327 



massive head, represent so entirely all the qualities that charac- 

 terize the common beech tree of Europe, Fagus sylvatica, that the 

 above general remarks on the beech apply equally to all. The 

 American white beech occasionally attains a height of one hundred 

 feet, but eighty feet is the more common altitude. This size is ex- 

 ceeded by the finest specimens in England and on the Continent. 

 Loudon mentions a beech at Kinwell, growing in a pure sand, one 

 hundred and five feet high, with a head one hundred and twenty- 

 three feet in diameter. The great beech in Studley Park is one 

 hundred and fourteen feet high, and upwards of one hundred and 

 thirty feet in diameter of head. 



The rate of growth of the white beech, when young, is about 

 the same as that of the sugar maple, but its growth is somewhat 

 more rapid after it has attained middle size, say thirty feet in 

 height ; and it is not unusual to see specimens growing with much 

 greater rapidity from the beginriing. Loudon mentions one only 

 fourteen years planted, forty feet high and thirty-two feet diameter 

 of head. Though the beech adapts itself readily to a great variety 

 of soils, it attains the greatest size on those, with a humid surface, 

 and a porous and calcareous subsoil. And it will grow to great 

 size in the crevices of rocks contiguous to moisture. Few trees 

 vary more in form. While in some groves of English trees, as 

 among the " Ashridge beeches " (Loudon's Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica, p. 1977), the Queen beech is seventy-four feet high, without 

 a branch, and then forms a tufted head one hundred and ten 

 feet in height ; another specimen is mentioned only thirty-six feet 

 high, with a trunk fourteen feet in circumference, five feet from the 

 ground, and a head ninety-five feet in diameter ! 



The leaves of the beech are said to be less liable to attacks of 

 insects, or to be eaten by cattle, than any other tree. 



The Weeping Beech. F. sylvaticus pendula.— VJs consider 

 this the most curious tree of our zone, and one that will commend 

 itself more and more as it becomes known. The original tree 

 stands in the park of Baron de Man, at Beersel, Belgium.* The 



* P, J. Berckmans, in Gardeners' Monthly, June, i86q. 



