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 
S 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. 
G EOLOGICALLY 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 
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.” 
Lossil remains of the 
Beech have been found in 
neolithic deposits in the Len 
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 Lagus a tree which can- 
not be anything else than 
the Common Beech. How- 
ever, the Lagus 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 Lagus was 
in common use among the Romans for the Chestnut. 
I N 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 (L. japonica) and one Chinese 
(L. lucida). In another japanese species (L. Sieboldii) and a 
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 
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