DECIDUOUS TREES. 
327 
massive head, represent so entirely all the qualities that charac¬ 
terize the common beech tree of Europe, Fagus sylvatica, that the 
above general remarks on the beech apply equally to all. The 
American white beech occasionally attains a height of one hundred 
feet, but eighty feet is the more common altitude. This size is ex¬ 
ceeded by the finest specimens in England and on the Continent 
Loudon mentions a beech at Kinwell, growing in a pure sand, one 
hundred and five feet high, with a head one hundred and twenty- 
three feet in diameter. The great beech in Studley Park is one 
hundred and fourteen feet high, and upwards of one hundred and 
thirty feet in diameter of head. 
The rate of growth of the white beech, when young, is about 
the same as that of the sugar maple, but its growth is somewhat 
more rapid after it has attained middle size, say thirty feet in 
height; and it is not unusual to see specimens growing with much 
greater rapidity from the beginning. Loudon mentions one only 
fourteen years planted, forty feet high and thirty-two feet diameter 
of head. Though the beech adapts itself readily to a great variety 
of soils, it attains the greatest size on those with a humid surface, 
and a porous and calcareous subsoil. And it will grow to great 
size in the crevices of rocks contiguous to moisture. Few trees 
vary more in form. While in some groves of English trees, as 
among the “Ashridge beeches” (Loudon’s Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica, p. 1977), the Queen beech is seventy-four feet high, without 
a branch, and then forms a tufted head one hundred and ten 
feet in height; another specimen is mentioned only thirty-six feet 
high, with a trunk fourteen feet in circumference, five feet from the 
ground, and a head ninety-five feet in diameter! 
The leaves of the beech are said to be less liable to attacks of 
insects, or to be eaten by cattle, than any other tree. 
The Weeping Beech. F sylvaticus pendula. — We consider 
this the most curious tree of our zone, and one that will commend 
itself more and more as it becomes known. The original tree 
stands in the park of Baron de Man, at Beersel, Belgium.* The 
* P. J. Berckmans, in Gardeners’ Monthly, June, i86g. 
