478 
Species 2. Dwarf Chesnut-tree. (Fagus Pumila.) 
The Dwarf Virginian Chesnut seldom grows above twelve or fourteen feet high, but produces 
great plenty of nuts, which are, for the most part, single in each capsule. This tree is very hardy, 
and will resist the severest of our winters in the open ground, but is very apt to decay in summer, 
especially in a dry sod. But although it delights in moisture, yet if the wet continues long upon 
the ground in winter, it frequently destroys the trees. It is very common in the woods of America, 
but is rare in England, though it was cultivated so long since as 16995 hy the Dutchess of Beaufort.'' 
Species 3. Common Beech-tree . (Fagus Sylvatica.) 
The appellation is nearly the same in all the northern languages, and in all the dialects of the 
Sclavonian. In German, Buche, Buke, or Boke; in Danish, Bog; in Swedish, Bok; in Russian, 
Polish, &c. Buk. The French HStre is from the Germen Hester, which signifies a young Beech. 
In Italian it is Baggio, from the Latin. In Portugueze this is softened into Faya; and in Spanish 
into Hay a; but in some provinces it is Fagos. 
This tree will grow to a very large size, lofty and spreading, the trunk straight, and covered with 
a whitish bark. The leaves are smooth and glossy, waved on the edges rather than serrate, or slightly 
sinuate-toothed, three inches and more in length, and two or upwards in breadth: the petioles red¬ 
dish, slightly grooved above, four or five lines in length, pubescent, as is also the midrib of the leaf. 
Stipules reddish-brown, shining, lanceolate, conspicuous. It retains the old leaves through the 
winter. The male catkins come out in bunches from the ends of the small branches; they are 
roundish, obtuse, half an inch long, and almost as broad; on peduncles from half an inch to four¬ 
teen lines in length, pendulous, round, and pubescent. Calyx cut half way into six sharp, villose, 
yellowish segments. Stamens uncertain ( 4 , 6, 8, 9 > 11 5 12.), from the bottom of the calyx. The 
female aments come out from the same place, a little above the others; they are erect, and on round, 
whitish, villose peduncles, four lines or upwards in length: the common involucre has two flowers, 
is four-cleft, and covered with soft spines; calyx superior, six-leaved, tomentose: germ three-celled, 
with two rudiments of seeds in each cell; styles three (or one three-cleft. G.); stigmas awl-shaped, 
and slightly hooked, yellowish and smooth; at the top of the germ there are also six whitish villose 
segments, shorter than the styles. The fruit is composed of two nuts joined at the base, covered 
with an almost globular four-valved involucre, with soft spines on the outside, but within very 
smooth and silky: the nuts when ripe are one-celled and triangular; and contain one or two angu¬ 
lar seeds.T 
The Beech is native of the greater part of Europe, and the southern provinces of the vast Russian 
empire; but it is not fond of very high or cold situations, nor is it found in the northern provinces 
of Sweden. Mr. Lightfoot doubts whether it be indigenous in Scotland; and Mr. Marshall thinks 
it is not a native of the northern counties in England; it prospers in a chalky and rocky soil, but. 
not in light lands. It thrives prodigiously in sheltered bottoms, and of all exposures most dislikes 
the west. In some parts of Hertfordshire, where the soil is a strong clay full of flints, this tree 
grows to a great size, and is extremely beautiful. 
Mr. Arthur Young (Travels in France, p. 7 -) speaks of a Beech in Chantilly, as the finest he 
ever saw; straight as an arrow, and not less than eighty or ninety feet high; forty feet to the first 
branch, and four yards in diameter at five feet from the ground. 
* Hort. Kew. 
•f Pollich, Haller, Gsertner. 
