FAGUS 
77 
In spite of an emphatic dictum by Sir J. E. Smith {loc. cit .) that this species is “certainly a native of the south and 
western parts of this island,” the majority of British systematists have been more or less doubtful as to whether or not the 
plant is really indigenous in this country. All we can state is that it may be indigenous. Gerard ( Herball 1254 (1597)) 
states that “ there be sundrie woods of Chestnuts in England, as a mile and a half from Feuersham in Kent, and in sundrie 
other places.” 
Very abundant in woods on sandy and gravelly soils in south-eastern England, especially in Kent, where 
the coppiced branches have long been used as hop-poles. The tree ripens its fruits in favourable seasons as far 
north as southern Cheshire. Planted throughout England, and in Scotland as far north as Aberdeenshire ; but 
rare in hilly districts and on calcareous soils. Not indigenous in Ireland. 
Denmark (not indigenous), Germany (not indigenous), Belgium (not indigenous), France (south-eastern and 
southern), central Europe (to 1170 metres in the Tyrol), southern Europe; Caucasus to Persia and northern 
India ; north-western Africa (not indigenous). 
Genus 3. Fagus 
FagUS [Tournefort Inst. 584, t. 351 (1719)] L. Sp. PI. 997 (1753) et Gen. PI. ed. 5, 432 (1754) partim ; 
Miller Card. Diet. ed. 8 (1768); Prantl in Engler und Prantl Pfianzenfam. iii, pt. i, 53 (1894). 
Trees. Leaves evergreen or deciduous. Catkins appearing with the leaves. Staminate catkins 
compound, dense-flowered, abbreviated, on long leafless peduncles. Pistillate catkins more or less 
spreading or ascending, with 2 flowers. Flowers wind-pollinated, protogynous. Perianth with 4 — 7, 
usually 5 segments. Stamens 8 — co . Filaments long. Carpels and stigmas 3. Fruiting invohicre 
spiny, 4-partite when mature, enclosing 3 nuts. Nut trigonous. Cotyledons epigeal. 
About 4 species, north temperate zone. 
Nothofagus , with 12 species, Antarctic and southern Andes, is sometimes included in Fagus. 
I. FAGUS SYLVATICA. Beech. Plate 79 
Fagus Gerard Herb. 1255 (1597); Ray Syn. ed. 3, 439 (1724). 
Fagus sylvatica L. Sp. PI. 998 (1753)!; Syme Eng. Bot. viii, 164 (1868); Rouy FI. France xii, 306 
(1910); Ascherson und Graebner Syn. iv, 436 (1911). 
leones: — Smith Eng. Bot. t. 1846; Reichenbach Icon. t. 629, fig. 1304; Hartig Forst. Culturpjl. t. 20. 
Camb. Brit. FI. ii. Plate yp. (a) Winter-twig, (b) Shoot with staminate and pistillate catkins. ( c ) Fertile 
shoot in summer. ( d ) Staminate flowers (one enlarged), (e) Ovaries (one enlarged). (/) Cupule and nut. 
(g) Cupule. (h) Nut. Huntingdonshire (E. W. H.). 
Exsiccata : — Billot, 2137 (=subvar. dentata Rouy loc. cit.); Bourgeau, 692; Fries, i, 59. 
Tree, up to about 35 m. high. Bark smooth. Old branches spreading or even descending 
towards the extremities. Winter buds elongate, glabrous. Petioles about one-fifth as long as the 
laminae, with silky hairs when young. Laminae oval or elliptical, ciliate when young, more or less 
undulate, subacute, about 7 cm. long and 4 broad. Staminate catkins on long hairy peduncles, 
Stamens ? about 12. Pistillate catkins on stout peduncles which are hairy when young and much 
shorter than those of the staminate catkins. Involucral bracts with scattered bristly spines. Nuts 
about 17 cm. long, shining, smooth, brown. Cotyledons of seedling about 4 cm. broad and 2 long, 
sessile, white below. 
There can be no doubt that the beech is indigenous in south-eastern England ; but it is almost impossible to be certain 
of its western and northern limits. We regard it as indigenous beyond all doubt in an area included by lines connecting 
Chelmsford, Wisbech, Gloucester, and Bournemouth, and as being possibly indigenous in lowlands of all England and eastern 
Scotland northwards at least to Forfarshire. 
Indigenous in southern and eastern England, about as far north as Cambridgeshire and about 
as far east as eastern Somerset. Fagus sylvatica is the dominant tree of the beech woods, including 
the beech “hangers,” on the Chalk escarpments of Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Oxfordshire, 
Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire : in Buckinghamshire, the beech woods spread on to the non-chalky 
plateaux: in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, beech woods are poor: in Gloucestershire, the tree 
is dominant in woods on Oolitic limestone ; also dominant, but to a much smaller extent, in woods 
on the Greensand and on other sandy and gravelly soils from eastern Somerset to Kent. Planted 
extensively and en masse throughout Great Britain, as far north as Caithness-shire ; ascending to 
500 m. in Derbyshire ; but at such altitudes the tree is not indigenous. The tree is said not to 
be indigenous in Ireland. 
