THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES— 

 VII. THE BEECHES 



ERNEST H. WILSON 



Assistant-Director, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University 



A Modern Tree as Trees Go, and the Clean-limbed Beauty of the Species Suggests Youth and the Athlete 

 Though the Oldest Specimens Are as Ruggedly Ancient in Appearance, and Actually, as Any Trees We Have 



MONG the familiar 

 trees of the north- 

 ern forests none is 

 . more stately and 

 beautiful than the European 

 or Common Beech (Fagus 

 sylvatica). A clean looking 

 tree and the epitome of 

 vigor, it has been aptly 

 termed the Hercules and the 

 Adonis of European forests. 

 There is something pecul- 

 iarly attractive about this 

 tree at all seasons. In win- 

 ter the pale gray, smooth 

 bark and the delicate 

 tracery of myriad branches 

 suggest a light, white mist 

 hovering in and about the 

 trees; in spring its clear 

 green mantle of foliage is 

 exquisitely delicate, yet it 

 soon assumes a darker hue 

 and forms a dense and cool- 

 ing shade in the summer 

 heat; and in autumn its 

 warm yellow- to russet- 

 brown tints and the long 

 persistence of the dead 

 leaves on the branches 

 make it a bright note in the 

 chill landscape. 



Again, the ground be- 

 neath Beech trees is gener- 

 ally dry and free from weeds 

 and is inviting to sit and 

 rest upon. Their crowns 

 are broad and far-spreading; 

 the middle and upper 

 branches are sharply ascend- 

 ing, the lower spread horizontally, often downward to midway 

 of their length but are upturned at their extremities — though 

 there are famous trees, like the Newbattle Beech near Dalkeith, 

 some eight miles from Edinburgh, in which the lower branches 

 lying on the ground have taken root and developed into in- 

 dependent trees. The branches of the Beech are very numerous 

 and crowded and, having a smooth bark, are particularly liable 

 to cross and grow into each other and, as it were, inosculate. 

 Hence, according to some old authorities, it was this tree that 

 first gave the idea of grafting. 



GEOLOGICALLY the Beech is not ancient, having appar- 

 ently first appeared in Tertiary times; it is in fact an ag- 

 gressive, modern type of tree. Lyell in his "Antiquity of Man" 

 speaks of it as follows: — " In the time of the Romans the Danish 

 Isles were covered as now with magnificent Beech forests. No- 

 where in the world does this tree flourish more luxuriantly than 

 in Denmark, and eighteen centuries seem to have done little or 



CLAD IN SNUG GRAY SATIN IS THE AMERICAN BEECH 



Which is broidered with the lenticels of the bark and accented by the 

 sharp shadows which the delicate branches cast under a winter sun 



nothing toward modifying 

 the character of the forest 

 vegetation. Yet in the an- 

 tecedent bronze period there 

 were no Beech trees, or at 

 most but a few stragglers, 

 the country being then 

 covered with Oak. The 

 Scots Pine buried in the 

 oldest peat in Denmark gave 

 place at length to the Oak; 

 and the Oak after flourish- 

 ing for ages, yields in its 

 turn to the Beech; the 

 periods when these three 

 forest trees predominated 

 in succession tallying pretty 

 nearly with the ages of 

 stone, bronze, and iron in 

 Denmark." «»■ *** ~^, 



Fossil remains of the 

 Beech have been found in 

 neolithic deposits in the Fen 

 district and elsewhere in 

 England, and in the pre- 

 glacial deposits in the 

 Cromer forests bed. Julius 

 Caesar stated that Fagus 

 did not occur in England; 

 but apparently the tree he 

 meant was the Chestnut 

 (Castanea). Yet the mis- 

 take is a curious one, for 

 the Roman, Pliny, described 

 as Fagus a tree which can- 

 not be anything else than 

 the Common Beech. How- 

 ever, the Fagus of the old 

 Greek philosopher, Theo- 

 phrastus, was undoubtedly 

 the Chestnut; and Virgil's statement that Castanea by grafting 

 would produce fagos seems to indicate that the name Fagus was 

 in common use among the Romans for the Chestnut. 



IN ALL there are ten species of Beech now recognized, eight of 

 which are growing in the Arnold Arboretum — and it is doubt- 

 ful if any other garden is so fortunate. And though we are here 

 primarily concerned with the Common Beech, it is not out of 

 place to say a word or two about the other species. They all 

 have the same general appearance and cannot be mistaken for 

 any other tree. All have the same sort of thin, firm, smooth, 

 light gray bark, and the leafage and the character of the branches 

 and their disposition is much the same. They differ one from 

 another in the shape and character of their fruits, and in the 

 habit of the bole. 



In the Common Beech the bole or trunk is single, and this 

 obtains in one Japanese species (F. japonica) and one Chinese 

 (F. lucida). In another Japanese species (F. Sieboldii) and a 



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