162 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
ing to Bull, as 65 to 100, and its ashes furnish a great quantity 
of potash. 
The beech is of very rapid growth. But it is seldom found 
over two and a half or three feet in diameter, and is universally 
considered a comparatively short-lived tree. Large trees are 
very often found decayed at heart; and it probably reaches 
maturity and begins to decay, in less than two centuries. 
From its rapid growth and thick shade, it recommends itself 
asa screen against wind, to give shelter toa garden. But it 
has the disadvantage that nothing will grow under it, nor well, 
very near it. It is wanting in gracefulness, but there is an 
animating play of light from its polished leaves, and this, con- 
trasting with its great depth of shade, makes it an agreeable 
object. 
I have been unable to find more than one kind of beech in 
Massachusetts. ‘The workers in the wood speak commonly of 
the white and the red; and I have often gone in pursuit of the 
varieties. But I have not succeeded in detecting any specific 
difference, and believe the appearance in the wood, which has 
given rise to these names, to be produced by the more or less 
rapid maturation of the wood. The heart wood is of a reddish 
hue. Where it predominates, the log is called red beech. 
Timber, in which the white sap wood is most conspicuous, is 
called white beech. 
The beech is said never to be struck by lightning. In trav- 
elling through a forest country, many oaks may be found which 
have been so struck, but never a beech. 
The beech of Europe differs so little from varieties of the 
American, that some botanists think them one species. There 
is doubtless a resemblance. But I am inclined to consider them 
distinct; much more distinct, certainly, than any varieties which 
I have been able to find in New England, are from cach other. 
The leaves of the European beech are well characterized by 
Willdenow as “ovate, smooth, ohsoletely dentate, and ciliate 
on the margin.” ‘T’hey are acute at each extremity. Those of 
our beech are narrow at base, and usually heart-shaped, decid- 
edly serrate or sometimes dentate, acuminate, and ciliate only 
