BEECH FAMILY 
The beech tree has evidently been the shining mark of 
lovers from earliest days. 
Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat 
Which on the beech's bark I lately writ ? 
—VIRGIL, 
On the smooth beechen rind the pensive dame 
Carves in a thousand forms her Tancred’s name. 
—Tasso. 
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that the beech tree 
of ancient literature is not the American beech but Fagus 
sylvatica, the common beech of Europe. Our beech differs 
from the European species in its paler bark and the lighter 
green of its leaves. 
CHESTNUT 
Castanea dentata. Castanea vésca. 
From Castanea a town in Thessaly, or from another town of that 
name in Pontus. New York Indians call the chestnut, O-heh- 
yah-tah, Prickly Bur. 
Occasionally one hundred feet high; grows rapidly and lives to 
great age. Very common on glacial drift of northern states, rarely 
found on limestone soils. Has stout tap root and thick rootlets. 
Juices are astringent. Attains its greatest size in western North 
Carolina and eastern Tennessee. 
Bark.—Grayish brown divided by shallow irregular fissures into 
broad flat ridges. Branchlets at first light yellow green, finally 
olive green and ultimately dark brown. 
Wood.—Reddish brown, sapwood lighter; light, soft, coarse- 
grained, not strong, easily split and very durable in contact with the 
soil; largely used in manufacture of cheap furniture, interior of 
houses, railway ties, fence posts and rails. Sp. gr.,0.4504; weight 
of cu. ft., 28.07 lbs. 
Winter Buds.—Dark chestnut brown, ovate, acute, one-fourth an 
inch long ; all lateral. 
Leaves.—A\ternate, oblong-lanceolate, six to eight inches long, 
acute or wedge-shaped base, coarsely serrate, acute or acuminate. 
Feather-veined ; midrib and veins prominent on the under side. 
Convolute in the bud, late in unfolding ; when full grown are a dark 
shining green above, a paler green beneath. In autumn they turn a 
386 
