Part 16

The hornbeam is found growing on the banks of streams and in moist woods throughout New England, and in the South and West.

CHAPTER VII

THE BEECH, CHESTNUT, AND OAKS

Chapter VII

THE BEECH, CHESTNUT, AND OAKS

Family Fagaceæ

Although the beech, chestnut, and oaks are divided into three separate genera, they all belong to the family Fagaceæ. It is an interesting family in winter and deserves careful study, particularly the oaks, which have always been more or less confusing at first sight.

There is one native beech and one native chestnut, and there are eleven oaks in the Northeastern States.

Fagus americana]

A beautiful, spreading tree 60 to 100 feet high, with a clean, close-fitting, smooth, gray bark. Buds narrow and sharp-pointed, with many overlapping scales. Twigs smooth, slender, and reddish brown, with alternate leaf-scars. Fruit a prickly burr inclosing two triangular, sharp-ridged nuts, the burr hanging on the trees well into the winter.

The beech is not so graceful as the elm, nor so lofty as the pine, nor so stalwart as the oak, but there is not a tree in the woods so distinctly lovable. In every detail the beech has a dainty, lady-like beauty, and among the leafless trees of the winter woods it is as fair as a flower, with its clean gray bole, its polished brown stems, and its slender, pointed, lance-like buds. There is no other tree with which the beech may be confused, and its characteristics are so pronounced and unvarying that there is little difficulty in recognizing it immediately in passing. When it has grown up partly shaded by other trees it has a lofty bearing, but when it has developed in open ground it is round-headed and spreading in shape. The beech trees from which the following photograph was taken were once shaded by other trees, and show this in the height they have attained and the absence of spreading, lateral branches.

Fagus Americana

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The wood is hard, strong, and very close-grained and is used for making chairs, shoe lasts, the handles of tools, and for fuel. In old trees where the heartwood predominates the wood is red, and in younger trees where the sapwood is more conspicuous the wood is white, and these differences in color gave rise to the popular belief among woodcutters that there are two species of beech. Michaux accepted this theory, which has since become obsolete. The nuts are sweet and edible, and are sold in Canada and some of the Western and Middle States.

The generic name, Fagus, comes from the Greek phago (to eat), in allusion to the nuts, which have always been used as food.

The beech is found from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Texas.

Fagus sylvatica]

A large tree with spreading branches and a smooth, gray trunk. Buds narrow and sharp-pointed. Twigs slender, smooth, and reddish brown in color, with alternate leaf-scars.

Although the beech stands alone in having no other tree like it, yet it is extremely difficult to tell the American beech from the European species which is planted commonly in our parks and gardens. The bark of the European beech is a darker gray in color, its buds are grayer than those of the American, and the inner scales of the bud have a tendency towards being more hairy along their edges; for the rest we must trust to our intuition in telling the trees apart, unless we are in the woods and know that there the only indigenous beech is the American.

From the time of Virgil the praises of the beech have been sung in both poetry and prose. Passienus Crispus, the orator, who married the Empress Agrippina, was so fond of it that “he not only delighted to repose beneath its shade, but he frequently poured wine on its roots, and used often to embrace it.” Evelyn and Cook recommended it, Boutcher thought that it “hardly had an equal,” Mathews called it “the Hercules and Adonis” of the sylva of Great Britain, and among the English poets Beaumont and Fletcher, Leigh Hunt, Gray, Campbell, and Wordsworth all loved and admired it for its rare beauty and vigor. Gilpin, however, does not join this chorus of praise; in his “Remarks on Forest Scenery” he calls it “an overgrown bush,” and explains at some length his reasons for thinking that it lacks picturesque beauty.

In Europe the wood has been used for more purposes than in America, and it also ranks high as fuel. In France oil is made from beechnuts, used in lamps and for cooking. The specific name, sylvatica, is from the Latin which means belonging to the woods.

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The purple beech is a variety of this tree, which has been propagated from the original sport found in a German forest over a hundred years ago. Plants from the seeds of the purple beech have a tendency to revert to the original green, and to insure its peculiar colored foliage gardeners perpetuate it by layers. It is a highly artificial tree, and unless it is carefully placed in appropriate surroundings its effect is far from pleasing.

Castanea dentata]

One of the largest of our forest trees. The bark is dark hard, and rugged, with coarse ridges on old trees. Light brown buds. Alternate leaf-scars. Recent shoots are coarse and channelled with two grooves running down from the base of each leaf-scar, closely set with white or gray dots. Fruit ripe in October.

At all times a giant among trees, the chestnut seems perhaps most remarkable in winter when the massive trunk and lofty branches can be fully appreciated. There is much beauty in the bark of this tree, the fissures sweep boldly up and down the trunk with broad, smooth spaces between the furrows and give a most pleasing impression.

It is interesting to find that the chestnut is one of the exceptions in nature to the rule that every tree has an unvarying mathematical arrangement of leaves on the stem. This regular distribution of leaves on the stem to economize space and light is called phyllotaxy, and different trees follow various systematic arrangements. When the leaves or leaf-scars are alternate on the stem, as they are in those of the chestnut, the arrangement is spiral and one leaf follows another up the stem in ranks of two, three, five, or more in definite order according to the kind of tree. In the chestnut, however, the phyllotaxy is frequently variable in different twigs of the same tree, and it follows an unruly, wayward leaf arrangement.

The wood of the chestnut is light, soft, and not strong, but it is used for making cheap furniture. It is also made into rails, posts, and railroad ties, as it is durable when used in contact with the soil. The nuts are sweet and edible and have great market value. The trees bear fruit when they are very young, and some Western farmers find that orchards of these trees bring better returns than the same amount of land in farm products.