those of any tree ordinarily cultivated in England, being about ¾ inch long. The buds of the European beech are wider at the middle than at either end; while in the American beech they are as narrow in the middle as they are at the base.
Varieties
A great number of varieties of the common beech occur, some of which have originated wild in the forests, whilst others have been obtained in cultivation.
Var. purpurea, Aiton, Purple Beech. A complete account of the origin of this variety appeared in Garden and Forest,[1] 1894, p. 2. From this it would appear that a purple beech[2] discovered in the eighteenth century in the Hanleiter forest near Sondershausen in Thuringia, is the mother tree of those which now adorn the pleasure grounds of Europe and America. This is the only authenticated source from which horticulturists have derived their stock. The purple beech was, however, long known before the Thuringian tree was discovered. In Wagner's Historia naturalis Helvetiæ curiosa (Zurich, 1680) mention is made of a beech wood at Buch, on the Irchel mountain in Zurichgau (commonly called the Stammberg), which contains three beech trees with red leaves, which are nowhere else to be found. These three beeches are again referred to in Scheuzer's Natural History of Switzerland, published in 1706; and the legend is stated that according to popular belief five brothers murdered one another on the spot where the trees sprang up. Offspring of these trees were carried into a garden, where they still retained their purple colour. The purple beech has also been observed in a wild state in the forest of Darney in the Vosges.
The purple beech has delicate light red-coloured foliage, which is of a pale claret tint in the spring, becoming a deep purple in summer. In early autumn the leaves almost entirely lose their purple colour, and change to a dark dusky green. The buds, young shoots, and fruits are also purple in colour. The involucres are deep purple brown in autumn, becoming browner with the advance of the season. The purple beech often fails to fruit regularly; still many individuals of this variety do produce fruit, and this has been sown, and in some cases produced plants almost all with purple leaves, not 5 per cent reverting to green.[3] The colour in the leaves, etc., is due to a colouring matter in the cells of the epidermis. The variety submits well to pruning or even to clipping with the shears; and may therefore, if necessary, be confined within narrow limits or grown as a pyramid in the centre of a group of trees.
A fine purple beech[4] grows in Miss Sulivan's garden, Broom House, Fulham, which is 82 feet high and 12 feet 2 inches in girth.
- ↑ See also Gartenflora, 1893, p. 150.
- ↑ This tree is still living. See Lutze, Mitth. des Thuringer Bot. Vereines, 1892, ii. 28.
- ↑ Elwes saw at the Flottbeck Nurseries near Hamburg, formerly occupied by the celebrated nurseryman John Booth, a fine hedge of purple beech, which Herr Ansorge told him was raised from a cross between the purple and the fern-leaved beeches. Of the produce of this cross 20 to 30 per cent came purple, but none were fern-leaved. This coincides exactly with his own experience in raising from seed. But in Mittheilungen Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft, 1904, p. 198, Graf von Schwerin describes as F. sylvatica ansorgei a hybrid from these two varieties which seems to combine the characters of both.
- ↑ Figured in Gard. Chron. 1898, xxiv. 305. See also ibid. 1903, xxxiii. 397, for notes on sub-varieties of the purple beech.
