12 
WHITE BEECH. 
sylvania, Maryland, and throughout the country east of the mountains, it 
is insulated in the forests, instead of composing large masses, as in Gennesee, 
Kentucky and Tennessee. I found the finest Beeches on the hanks of the 
Ohio between Gallipolis and Marietta, and measured several stocks grow- 
ing near each other, which were 8, 9, and 11 feet in circumference, and 
more than 100 feet high. In these forests, where the Beeches vegetate 
in a deep and fertile soil, their roots sometimes extend to a great distance 
even with the surface, and being entangled so as to cover the ground, they 
embarrass the steps of the traveller and render the land peculiarly difficult 
to clear. 
The White Beech is more slender and less branchy than the Red Beech ; 
hut its foliage is superb, and its general appearance magnificent. The 
leaves are oval-acuminate, smooth, shining, and bordered in the spring with 
soft hairy down. The sexes are borne by different branches of the same 
tree. The 'barren flowers are collected in pendulous, globular heads, and 
the others are small and of a greenish hue. The fruit is an erect capsule 
covered with loose, flexible spines, which divides itself at maturity into four 
parts, and gives liberty to two triangular seeds. The bark upon the trunk 
of the Beech is thick, gray, and, on the oldest stocks, smooth and entire. 
The perfect wood of this species bears a small proportion to the sap, and 
frequently occupies only 3 inches in a trunk 18 inches in diameter. The 
specific name of White Beech is derived from the color of the alburnum ; 
and it should be observed that trees of the same genus are more frequently 
distinguished in the United States by the complexion of their wood than 
by the differences of their foliage and of their flowers. The properties of 
this wood will be more particularly mentioned in the description of the 
Red Beech. 
On the banks of the Ohio and in some parts of Kentucky, where the 
Oak is too rare to afford bark enough for tanning, the deficiency is supplied 
by that of the White Beech; the leather made with it is white and ser- 
viceable, though avowedly inferior to what is prepared with the bark of 
the Oak. 
The Beech wood brought for fuel to the market of Philadelphia bears a 
small proportion to the Oak and the Hickory ; hence we presume that it is 
comparatively little esteemed. 
Noth withstanding the beauty of this tree, the properties of its wood are 
not such as to entitle it to attention in Europe. 
PLATE CYI. 
A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig . 1 , A beech-nut. 
