its best in the northern deciduous forest, where it is a stately tree, e.g. at Lake Superior. The finest individual trees occur on the small hills of the Mississippi valley, but the timber is not so good as that of trees farther north. Pure woods of American beech rarely if ever occur.[1] Elwes saw the American beech principally near Boston and in Canada, and remarked one peculiarity which may not be found in all places. This was its tendency to throw up suckers from the roots, a feature which is very marked in Professor Sargent's park at Brookline, and in the beautiful grounds of the Arnold Arboretum, There is a group of beech here by the side of a drive, of which the largest was 65 feet by 7 feet 8 inches, surrounded by a dense thicket of suckers. Beech seedlings, however, seem to be much less common here than in Europe, and on moist ground are often suppressed by maple and other trees. The rate of growth of young trees in the Arboretum was about equal to that of the European beech at twenty years, and the bark of the latter was darker in colour. Near Ottawa Elwes gathered ripe fruit of the American beech[2]—which here is not a large or tall tree—in the end of September; the mast was smaller and less abundant than in the European beech, and the tree—as near Boston—did not seem to have the same tendency to outgrow and suppress other hardwoods which it shows in Europe. The roots, judging from seedlings sent from Meehan's nurseries at Philadelphia, are larger, deeper, and less fibrous than those of the European beech, though this may be caused by a deep soil. A good illustration of the American beech in the open is given in Garden and Forest, viii. 125, taken from a tree at South Hingham, Massachusetts.
The American beech is rare in collections in England. We have only seen specimens at Kew Gardens, Beauport, Tortworth, and Eastnor Castle. In no case do these attain more than 15 feet in height. As the tree, no doubt, was often planted even a century ago, and no large trees are known to exist in this country, it is very probable that, like many other species from the Eastern States, it will never reach timber size in this climate. The specimen from Eastnor Castle has very dull green leaves, somewhat cordate at the base, and probably belongs to the following variety.
Var. caroliniana, Loudon, ex Lodd. Cat. (1836).—In cultivation in Europe, distinguished from the common form by the leaves being more rounded at the base, said to be more dwarf in height, and to come out in leaf fifteen days before ordinary Fagus ferruginea.[3]
Fagus orientalis. Caucasian Beech.
- Fagus orientalis, Lipski, Acta. Hort. Petrop. xiv. 300 (1897).
- Fagus sylvatica, Linnæus, β macrophylla, DC., and γ asiatica, DC. (ex parte). Prod. xvi 2, 119 (1864).
Lipski says that the beech which occurs in the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and
- ↑ But Sargent says that it attains its largest size in the rich land of the Lower Ohio valley, and in the Southern Alleghanies, and that it often forms pure forests. He quotes an old author (Morton) as follows:—"Beech there is of two sortes, red and white, very excellent for trenchers or chaires, also for oares," and says that these different coloured woods, recognised by lumbermen, are produced by individual trees, which are otherwise apparently identical, and for which Michaux and Pursh tried to find botanical characters which he cannot allow to be specific.
- ↑ Sargent says that the sweet nuts are sold in Canada, and in some of the middle and western states.
- ↑ Jouin, "Les Hêtres" in Le Jardin (1899), p. 42.
