FAGUS
THE NORTHERN BEECHES
- Fagus, Linnæus, Syst. ed. 1. V. Monœcia (1735); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Plant. iii. 410 (1880).
The genus, as understood by Bentham and Hooker, included all the beeches, those of the southern as well as of the northern hemisphere. Blume[1] separated the southern beeches as a distinct genus, Nothofagus; and his arrangement, on account of its convenience, will be followed by us. Fagus belongs to the family Quercineæ, which includes the oaks, chestnuts, castanopsis, and beeches. The genus, limited to include only the northern beeches, consists of large trees with smooth bark and spindle-shaped buds arranged alternately on the twigs in two rows. Leaves: deciduous, simple, pinnately-nerved, folded in the bud along the primary nerves. Flowers monœcious: the staminate flowers numerous in pendulous globose heads, the pistillate flowers in pairs in involucres. The male flower has a 4 to 8 lobed calyx with 8 to 16 stamens. The female flower has a 6 lobed calyx, adnate to a 3 celled ovary, with 2 ovules in each cell; styles 3, filiform. On ripening, the involucre is enlarged, woody, and covered with bristly deltoid or foliaceous processes; it dehisces by 4 valves, allowing the 2 fruits enclosed to escape. Each fruit is 3 angled and contains 1 seed, which has no albumen.
Seven distinct species of Fagus have been described, of which three, the European beech, the American beech, and the peculiar Fagus japonica are recognised by all botanists as good species. The Caucasian beech, the two Chinese beeches, and the common beech of Japan are considered by some authorities to be mere varieties of Fagus sylvatica; but these can all readily be distinguished, and in the following account will be treated as independent species.
Key to the Species of Fagus.
I. Nuts projecting out of the top of the involucre.
- I. Fagus japonica. Japan.
- Involucre very small, covered externally with small deltoid processes, and borne on a very long slender stalk. Leaves with 10-14 pairs of nerves, which bend round before quite reaching the slightly undulating margin.
- ↑ Blume, in Mus. Lugd. Bat. i. 306.
