THE BEECH — continued. 
Though they may vary in their powers of absorbing its products, all these are humus- 
loving species. The rootlets of the Beech itself are covered with a dense mycorhiza, 
which takes the place of its root-hairs, and hands on to the tree, perhaps, not only 
an abundant supply of water and soluble organic matter, both nitrogenous and 
non-nitrogenous, obtained from the humus, but also some of the free nitrogen of the 
atmosphere. It is at least significant that young Beech plants cannot be grown in 
artificial nutrient solutions or “water-cultures.” 
The buttresses at the base of the Beech do not extend far up the stem, which 
may rise in a cylindrical column twenty, thirty, or even seventy feet without a 
branch, or may have a girth of eighteen feet or more. From the main and approxi- 
mately horizontal limbs huge branches may tower up vertically, “ each in itself a 
tree,” or the more slender branchlets and twigs may sweep downward to the ground. 
The smooth grey bark, from the time of Paris and CEnone to that of Orlando and 
Rosalind and onwards, has tempted to the carving of “ many a long-forgotten name,” 
as Campbell says ; whilst its power of lateral growth, though enabling it to remain 
thin, first enlarges and then buries the incised letters : — 
“ Et quantum trunci, tantum mea nomina crescunt.” 
The long, polished and pointed, brown, spindle-shaped buds, diverging at a 
considerable angle from the dark grey twigs, are easily recognisable ; though we may 
perchance notice a graceful little spirally-coiled snail-shell identical in size and colour 
with the Beech buds which is carried by its occupant, a species of Clausilia , at an 
angle similar to that made by the buds. 
It is in April that the beauty of the Beech generally first commands our attention, 
when the swelling buds glow in the spring sunshine from bronze to red, and then 
first one spray and then whole trees burst into pellucid emerald silk-fringed foliage. 
A month later the globular heads of staminate flowers, each of which has from four 
to seven united sepals and from eight to twelve stamens, hang on long weak stalks 
among the leaves ; whilst the green ovate cupule, covered with long tapering 
outgrowths and enclosing two female flowers, is borne on a shorter, stouter stalk 
nearer the apex of the same shoot. Neither type of flowers is at all conspicuous. 
Each female flower has a perianth of four, six, or nine united sepals surmounting 
the three-chambered, three-styled ovary which becomes the three-sided nut so 
attractive to squirrels, dormice, pigeons, pheasants, and pigs. In spite of the many 
forest animals that feed upon them, plenty of these survive to put forth the curious, 
dark green, fan-shaped cotyledons with their white felted under surfaces. 
