42 
grows in this soil to its greatest size. Planted by itself in the open 
ground the American Beech does not grow well, and rarely makes a 
handsome specimen, but does best when many trees are planted so 
close together that the lower branches are killed and tall trunks formed. 
Fagus sylvatica, the European species, is distributed over a large 
part of Europe except in the extreme north, growing to great perfec- 
tion in England, Denmark, parts of Germany, and on the mountains 
of the Balkan Peninsula, often forming pure forests and growing to a 
height of more than a hundred feet. It is a hardy and handsome tree 
in New England, where it seems to be perfectly at home, and grows 
faster and makes a handsomer specimen tree than the American species. 
There is no record, unfortunately, of the date of the introduction of 
this tree into the United States, but judging by the size of some of 
the trees here it must have been at least a hundred years ago. The 
finest European Beeches in the neighborhood of Boston are on Long- 
wood Mall, a strip of turf extending east from Kent Street and be- 
tween Chatham and Beech Streets in Brookline. This Mall was laid 
out by David Sears at the time he was engaged in developing his Long- 
wood property seventy-five or eighty years ago, and it is probable that 
these Beech-trees were planted at about that time. There are sixteen 
of these trees, thirteen with green leaves and three of the purple- 
leaved variety. They are all in good health and are short-stemmed 
specimens from sixty to seventy feet tall with wide-spreading branches 
which on some of the trees sweep the ground. These trees now be- 
long to the Town of Brookline, to which Longwood Mall and three 
other squares in the Longwood district were left by Mr. Sears. Sev- 
eral varieties of the European Beech have been found in Europe and 
are propagated and sold by nurserymen. The best known of these 
varieties is the so-called Purple Beech with leaves which are pale red 
in spring and deep red-purple at maturity. The Purple Beech was 
found growing naturally in the forest in three or four places in central 
Europe, and the first account of it was published as long ago as 1680. 
Seedlings of the Purple Beech sometimes have purple leaves; such 
seedlings often differ in shades of color, and to some of these trees 
names have been given. The Purple Beech is better known and more 
generally planted in this country than the typical green-leafed form, 
and for many years now has been a favorite with tree-planters in the 
northeastern states. The Copper Beech (var. cuprea) which is probably 
a seedling of the Purple Beech, has paler copper red leaves than those 
of that tree. An interesting form (var. pendula) of the European Beech 
is a comparatively low tree with horizontal or slightly pendulous branches 
from which hang almost vertically the secondary branches, the whole 
forming a tent-like head almost as broad as high. This tree was at 
one time somewhat planted in this country, and the largest specimen 
known here is the tree growing on what was once part of the Parsons 
Nursery in Flushing, Long Island. This tree is said to be one of the 
finest specimens in existence. A picture of it can be found in Wilson’s 
Romance of Our Trees. There are other forms of the European Beech 
with pendulous branches differing somewhat in habit from the var. 
pendula to which names have been given (vars. bornyensis, remillyen- 
