# The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland/Volume 1/Fagus

The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland was a multi-volume work, privately published between 1906 and 1913. The first volume was published 1906. The plates of this volume were published separately
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 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.
​II. Nuts enclosed in the involucre.
    A. Involucres with linear, awl-shaped, bristly appendages. Species 2, 3, and 4.
       2. Fagus sylvatica. Europe.
          Fruit-stalks short and pubescent throughout.
          Leaves: under surface glabrous except on the nerves and midrib; lateral nerves 5–9 pairs; margin not regularly serrate.
       3. Fagus ferruginea. North America.
          Fruit-stalks short and pubescent throughout.
          Leaves: under surface glabrous except on the nerves and midrib; lateral nerves 10–12 pairs, ending in the teeth; margin serrate.
       4. Fagus sinensis. Central China.
          Fruit-stalks short, pubescent only close to the involucre.
          Leaves: minutely pubescent over their whole under surface; lateral nerves 9–10 pairs ending in the teeth; margin serrate.
    B. Involucres with their lower appendages dilated and foliaceous. Species 5, 6, 7.
       5. Fagus orientalis. Caucasus, Asia Minor, N. Persia.
          Fruit-stalks long (twice the length of the involucre or more) and very pubescent throughout.
          Leaves: broadest above the middle; lateral nerves about 10 pairs, bending round before quite reaching the undulate margin; under surface glabrous except on the midrib and nerves.
       6. Fagus Sieboldi. Japan.
          Fruit-stalks short (as long as the involucres) and pubescent throughout.
          Leaves: broadest below the middle; lateral nerves 7–10 pairs, bending round before quite reaching the margin, which is crenate; under surface glabrous beneath except on the nerves and midrib.
       7. Fagus Engleriana. Central China.
          Fruit-stalks very long (five times the length of the involucre) and quite glabrous.
          Leaves glabrous and glaucescent underneath; lateral nerves 13 pairs, bending round before quite reaching the undulate margin.
    Fagus ferruginea. American Beech.
       Fagus ferruginea, Dryander, in Ait. Hort. Kew. iii. 362 (1789); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. iii. 1980 (1838); Mayr. Wald. von Nordamerika, 176 (1890).
       Fagus sylvatica atropunicea, Marsh. Arb. Am. 46 (1785).
       Fagus silvestris, Mich. fil. Hist. Arb. Am. ii. 170, t. 8 (1812).
       Fagus atropunicea, Sudworth, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xx. 42 (1893).
       Fagus americana, Sweet, Hort. Brit. 370 (1826); Sargent, Silva of N. Am. ix 27 (1896).
The American beech ranges, according to Sudworth, from Nova Scotia to north shore of Lake Huron and Northern Wisconsin; south, to western Florida; and west, to south-eastern Missouri and Texas (Trinity River). Mayr says it is at ​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. 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—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.
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 ​ North Persia, is a peculiar species. Radde, while not admitting it to be a distinct species, considers that it is a form which approaches the Japanese Fagus Sieboldi, Endl., rather than the typical European beech, which occurs in the Crimea. Specimens in the Kew herbarium from the Caucasus, Paphlagonia, Phrygia, and Ghilan (a province of North Persia), differ markedly in fruit from the common beech. This tree occurs throughout the whole of the Caucasus, both on the north and south sides, often ascending to the timber line, but descending in Talysch to the sea-level. On the north side of the Caucasus the beech reaches to 5900 feet altitude; while in the Schin valley, on the south side of the range, it attains 7920 feet. It occurs mixed with other trees, or forms pure woods of considerable extent. It sometimes occurs in the forests in the form of gigantic bushes (springing from one root), of which the individual stems measure 6 feet in girth, and are free from branches to 30 or 40 feet. The largest trees recorded by Radde were:—one 380 years old, 7 feet in girth, and 123 feet high; and another 250 years old, 8 feet 4 inches in girth, and 120 feet high, which contained 370 cubic feet of timber.
This species has been introduced into cultivation on the Continent, and is said to have a crown of foliage more slender and more pyramidal than the common beech.
Fagus japonica. Small Beech of Japan. (Native name, Inubuna.)
    Fagus japonica, Maximowicz, Mél. Biol. xii. 542 (1886).
       Shirasawa, Iconographie des Essences Forestières du Japan, vol. i. t. 35, figs. 1–13 (1900).
This species is much rarer in Japan than Fagus Sieboldi, and was not seen by Elwes or Sargent, who says that it had not been collected since a collector in Maximowicz's employ found it on the Hakone mountains, and in the province of Nambu. Very little is known about it, and it has not been introduced into Europe. Shirasawa, however, says it has the same distribution as Fagus Sieboldi, and grows almost always in mixture with it, but beginning at a lower level; and that it often occurs in a bushy form, and does not attain the dimensions of the other species.
Fagus Sieboldi. Common Beech of Japan. (Native name, Buna.)
    Fagus Sieboldi, Endlicher, Gen. Suppl. iv. 2, 29 (1847).
    Fagus sylvatica, L., γ asiatica, DC. Prod. xvi. 2, 119 (1864).
    Fagus sylvatica, L., δ Sieboldi, Maximowicz, Mél. Biol. xii. 543 (1886). Shirasawa, l.c. t. 35, figs. 14–26.
This is the common beech which occurs in Japan, and it is considered by Japanese botanists to be only a variety of the European beech. Shirasawa has given some details concerning its distribution, in connection with a figure which illustrates well the botanical characters of the species. Sargent was doubtful if the common beech in Japan was not quite identical in all respects with the European beech.
Elwes saw it in many places in Central Japan, but not in Hokkaido. Near Nikko it grows to a large size at 2000-4000) feet, but not in pure woods, being, so ​far as he saw, always mixed with other trees, though Goto says that it occurs in Honshu and in the southern half of Hokkaido in almost unmixed woods, and that in Aomori, Iwate, Echigo, and Yamagata, pure woods of vast dimensions are seen in the mountains above 1000 feet elevation. It is one of the most important trees for firewood and charcoal, but little valued for building. It grows well in shade, and continues to grow to a great age, sometimes attaining enormous size. The Ainos in old Japan are said to have used the tree for dug-out canoes. The largest trees measured by Elwes were in the Government forest of Atera, in the district of Kisogawa, where there were tall straight trees in mixed deciduous forests of beech, magnolia, oak, birch, and maple, about 100 feet high and 9–10 feet in girth. Here the wood was not of sufficient value to pay the expense of carriage.
Fagus sinensis.
    Fagus sinensis, Oliver, in Hook. Icon. Plant. t. 1936 (1891); Diels, Flora von Central China, 284 (1901).
    Fagus sylvatica, L., var. longipes, Oliver, in scheda ad Hook. Icon. Plant. t. 1936 (1891); Franchet, Jour. de Bot. 1899, p. 90.
    Fagus longipetiolata, v. Seemen, in Engler, Bot. Jahrb. xxiii. Beibl. 57, p. 56 (1897).
This tree was discovered by Henry in the mountains south of the Yangtse, near Ichang, in Central China. It occurs scattered in deciduous forests at 3000–4000 feet altitude, and sometimes attains a considerable size, one tree being noted as 15 feet in girth. Von Rosthorn subsequently found the same species in the mountains south of Chungking, in Szechuan.
Fagus Engleriana.
    Fagus Engleriana, v. Seemen, in Diels, Flora von Central China, 285, cum figurâ (1901).
    Fagus sylvatica, L., var. longipes, Oliver, "var. bracteolis involucri exterioribus spatulatim dilatatis," Oliver, in scheda ad Hook, Icon. Plant, t. 1936 (1891).
    Fagus sylvatica, L., var. chinensis, Franchet, Jour. de Bot. 1899, p. 201.
This species was also discovered by Henry, but in the mountains north of the Yangtse from Ichang in Central China. Subsequently specimens were sent to Europe by Père Farges from North-East Szechuan, and by von Rosthorn from Southern Szechuan. It is a smaller tree than F. sinensis, and was seen by Henry on wooded cliffs.
Neither of the Chinese beeches form pure woods. A beech of considerable size was seen by Henry in Yunnan, in a mountain wood near Mengtse, at about 5000 feet elevation, and is possibly a distinct species. This rare tree is remarkable in that it extends the southern limit of the northern beeches to as low as 23° N.
FAGUS SYLVATICA, Common Beech
    Fagus sylvatica, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 998 (1753). Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1950 (1838).
A large tree, commonly 100 feet high (attaining 130 to 140 feet under very favourable conditions), with a girth of 20 feet or more. Bark usually grey and smooth, but often in old trees becoming fissured and scaly, especially near the base. Branchlets of two kinds; the short shoots ringed and bearing only a terminal bud in winter and one, two, or three leaves in summer; the long shoots slender, glabrous, with many leaves in two lateral rows (in winter the buds are seen arising from the upper side of the twig, the leaf-scars being on the lower side).
Leaves: deciduous, alternate, two-ranked, varying in size with altitude and vigour, those of trees at high elevations being much smaller; generally oval, somewhat acuminate at the apex, slightly unequal at the base, undulate or toothed in margin, with 6–10 pairs of lateral nerves, which with the midrib are raised on the under surface of the leaf, and are more or less pubescent.
Flowers: arising in the axils of the leaves of the young shoots; the male heads by long pendulous stalks, the female involucres by short erect stalks above the male flowers on the same branchlet or on separate branchlets. The true fruits are usually two together enclosed in a woody involucre, which is beset by prickles. Each fruit contains a seed, triangular in shape like the fruit containing it. The seed hangs from the top of the cell and has no albumen.
Seedling: the seedling of the beech has a long primary root and a stout radicle, 1–2 inches long, bearing 2 large sessile oval cotyledons, which are dark green above and whitish beneath. The first true leaves of the beech are opposite, ovate, obtuse, and crenate, borne on the stem an inch or so above the cotyledons. Above this pair other leaves are borne alternately, and the first season's growth terminates in a long pointed bud with brown imbricated scales.
The common beech is distinguishable at all seasons by its bark, which is only simulated by the hornbeam; but in the latter tree the stem is usually more or less fluted. In winter the pointed buds, arranged distichously on the long shoots and composed of many imbricated scales, are characteristic; while in length they exceed ​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, 1894, p. 2. From this it would appear that a purple beech 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. 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 grows in Miss Sulivan's garden, Broom House, Fulham, which is 82 feet high and 12 feet 2 inches in girth.
​Another occurs at Hardwick, Bury St. Edmunds, the seat of G.M. Gibson Cullum, Esq., which in 1904 was 11 feet 9 inches in girth, and about 80 to 90 feet in height. Bunbury considered this to be the finest purple beech in England, and says it produces abundance of fruit, from which young trees have been raised.
Var. cuprea, Loddiges, Copper Beech.—This is only a sub-variety of the purple beech, distinguished by its young shoots and leaves being of a paler colour. The largest purple or copper beech which Elwes has seen is in the park at Dunkeld, Perthshire, not far from the Cathedral. This measures 86 feet high, with a girth of 15 feet 3 inches, and does not show any evidence of having been grafted. There is a very fine one at Corsham Court, the seat of General Lord Methuen, 85 to 90 feet high, by 14 in girth, forking at about 10 feet. At Scampston Hall, Yorkshire, Mr. Meade-Waldo tells us of two large spreading trees on their own roots, 11 feet 6 inches and 10 feet 6 inches in girth respectively. At Beauport, Sussex, the seat of Sir Archibald Lamb, Bart., a copper beech measured 12½ feet in girth in 1904. At Syston Park, Lincolnshire, the seat of Sir John Thorold, Bart., there is one nearly as large (12 feet 2 inches girth). A copper beech at Bell Hall, York, which was planted in 1800, measured in 1894, 9 feet in girth, the diameter of the spread of the branches being 74 feet. At Castle MacGarrett, Claremorris, Ireland, the seat of Lord Oranmore, there is a beautiful copper beech, which in 1904 was 70 feet high and 9 feet 10 inches in girth. In Over Wallop Rectory grounds, in Hampshire, a copper beech measured 9 feet 4 inches in 1880.
Two fine trees occur at Clonbrock, in Co. Galway, the seat of Lord Clonbrock. One measured in 1904 a length of 76 feet and a girth of 12 feet 9 inches. The other was 7 feet 6 inches girth in 1871, and in 1880 it had increased to 8 feet 5 inches.
The copper beech is rarely used as a hedge, but there is one in the gardens of Ashwellthorpe Hall, Norwich, which is 138 yards long, 8 feet high, and about 5 feet through. It was planted about seventy years ago from seedlings by the Hon. and Rev. R. Wilson. The colouring in spring is very beautiful.
There is a sub-variety of the copper beech in which the leaf is edged with pink whilst young, but later in summer it becomes nearly like the type. This variety has been called Fagus purpurea roseo-marginata, and it has been recommended as a hedge-plant, to be clipped two or three times during summer so as to obtain several crops of young shoots.
Var. atropurpurea.—The leaves in this are of a darker colour than in the ordinary purple beech.
Var. atropurpurea Rohani is quite different from the last, as the form of the leaves is similar to that of the fern-leaved beech, but their colour is like that of the copper beech.
Var. purpurea pendula.—This is a weeping form of the purple beech. It is of slow growth.
​Var. Zlatia, Späth, Golden Beech.—This was found wild in the mountains of Servia by Professor Dragaschevitch. It is known in Servia as Zladna bukwa (golden beech).
Var. striata, Bose.—This was discovered many years ago in a forest in Hesse. Soon after opening, the leaves show a regular golden striation parallel with the nerves, and this appearance lasts till the leaves fall off in autumn. It was introduced in 1892 by Dippel.
Various other coloured varieties have been obtained by horticulturists. In var. variegata the leaves are particoloured with white and yellow, interspersed with some streaks of red and purple. In var. tricolor the leaves are dark purplish green, spotted with bright pink and shaded with white. There are also gold-striped (var. aureo-variegata) and silver-striped (var. argenteo-variegata) varieties.
Var. heterophylla, Loudon, Fern-leaved Beech.—The leaves are variously cut, either in narrow shreds like some ferns, or in broader divisions like the leaves of a willow. This variety has received a great number of names, as laciniata, comptoniæfolia, incisa, salicifolia, asplenifolia, etc. The tree occasionally bears normal and cut leaves on the same twig, or normal and cut leaves on different twigs. It bears fruit occasionally, which, according to Bunbury, is smaller than that of the common beech, the cupule being shorter in proportion to the nuts. The leaf-buds are considerably smaller than those of the common form; and the twigs are often very pubescent. The origin of this variety is unknown.
There is a good specimen of this tree at Devonshurst House, Chiswick, which measured in 1903 55 feet in height, and 8 feet 2 inches in girth at 3 feet, just under a great horizontal branch.
At Barton, Bury St. Edmunds, a fern-leaved beech in 1904 was 53 feet high, with a girth of 5 feet 1 inch. This tree was planted in 1831, but grew slowly, in 1869 being only 15 feet high, with a trunk 3 feet round. In 1868 the tree bore some twigs with ordinary leaves; and it first fruited in 1869, the crop being a very small one.
There are large and well-shaped trees of this form at Strathfieldsaye measuring 50 feet by 7 feet 5 inches; at Fawley Court of the same size exactly, and weeping to the ground; and at Stowe near Buckingham.
Var. quercoides, Pers., Oak-leaved Beech.—The leaves in this variety are longstalked, with an acute base and acuminate apex; margins pinnately and deeply cut, the individual segments being acute.
Var. cristata, Lodd. (also known as var. crispa).—Small and nearly sessile leaves, crowded into dense tufts, which occur at intervals on the branches. This form rarely attains a large size.
Var. macrophylla (also known as latifolia).—The leaves in this form are very large. In a specimen at Kew, from the garden of the Horticultural School at Vilvorde, they attain 7 inches in length and 5 inches in width. A large specimen of this tree, some fifty years old, occurs at Enys in Cornwall. The buds, as might ​be expected, in this variety are considerably larger than those of the ordinary form.
Var. rotundifolia, Round-leaved Beech.—The leaves are very small, round, and bright green, and are set close on the twigs. This variety has an upright habit of growth, and was introduced in 1894 by Jackman of Woking.
Var. grandidentata.—A form with conspicuously toothed leaves.
Var. pendula, Loddiges, Weeping Beech.—Several forms of this variety occur, but in all the smaller branches hang down. The main branches are irregularly disposed, so that the tree often has a very rugged outline. This variety should be grafted at a good height, as otherwise many of the pendulous branches will lie upon the ground; and the main branches, if they show a tendency to droop too much, should be supported. Weeping beeches may be tall and slender, or low and broad, or quite irregular, depending upon the direction of the larger branches, which may grow outwards or upwards, or in almost any direction; the smaller branches only are uniformly pendulous.
The weeping beech has been observed wild in the forest of Brotonne, in Seine-Inférieure, France.
A good example of a tall, slender, weeping beech may be seen near Wimbledon Common, on the estate lately owned by Sir W. Peek. A fine specimen occurs at Barton, which in 1904 was 77 feet high and 5 feet 2 inches in girth. Elwes has noted a very picturesque and well-shaped one at Endsleigh, near Tavistock, the Devonshire seat of the Duke of Bedford. Several have been figured in the Gardeners' Chronicle, e.g. a group of three trees at Ashwick Hall, Gloucestershire, which were planted about 1860. In the Knap Hill Nursery at Woking, and in the nursery of R. Smith and Co. at Worcester, there are fine specimens. Another good specimen, occurring in Dickson's nursery at Chester, is figured in the Garden.
Many forms of weeping beech have been described as sub-varieties, as purpurea pendula, mentioned above; var. miltonensis, with branches less pendulous, found wild in Milton Park, Northamptonshire; var. borneyensis, found wild in the forest of Borney, near Metz, and described as having an erect stem and distinctly pendulous branches; var. pagnyensis, discovered in the forest of Pagny in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle in France; var. remillyensis, found in the forest of Remilly, near Metz.
Var. tortuosa, Parasol Beech.—In this curious form, the branches, both large and small, and the branchlets are all directed towards the ground. It is not to be confounded with the preceding variety, in which only the slender branches are pendulous; and is analogous rather to the weeping ash. Beeches of this form have, even in old age, a very short and twisted stem, with a hemispherical crown, which sometimes touches the ground; and it scarcely ever grows higher than 10 feet. This variety has been found wild in France, in the forest of Verzy, near Rheims, and also ​in the neighbourhood of Nancy. Fruits of this form have been sown in the garden of the Forest School of Nancy, and have reproduced the twisted form in about the proportion of three-fifths; the other two-fifths of the fruit produced form like the common beech and intermediate varieties.
Many other varieties have been described; and other forms possibly occur wild which have not been noticed. Major M'Nair sent to Kew in 1872 from Brookwood, Knaphill, Surrey, a specimen from a tree growing there, and reported to be in vigorous health, in which the leaves are remarkably small and have only four pairs of lateral nerves.(A.H.)
Distribution
The beech is indigenous to England. Remains of it have been found in neolithic deposits at Southampton docks, Crossness in Essex, in Fenland, in preglacial deposits in the Cromer forest bed, and at Happisburgh, Norfolk. Names of places of Saxon origin, in which the word beech occurs are very common, as Buckingham, Buxton, Boxstead, Boxford, Bickleigh, Boking, etc. The existence of the beech in Britain in ancient times has been questioned on account of the statement by Julius Cæsar that Fagus did not occur in England. H.J. Long has discussed what tree the Romans meant by Fagus, and the evidence is conflicting. Pliny described as Fagus a tree which is plainly the common beech. However, Virgil's statement that Castanea by grafting would produce fagos indicates rather that Fagus was a name used for the sweet chestnut; and this view is confirmed by the fact that out of the wood of Fagus the Romans made vine-props and wine-casks. The Latin word Fagus is derived immediately from the Greek Φηγός; and the Φηγός of Theophrastus is certainly the chestnut, probably the wild tree which is indigenous to the mountains of Greece. Caesar's statement probably implies that in his day the sweet chestnut did not occur in Britain.
The beech is not believed to be indigenous in Scotland and Ireland, and no evidence is forthcoming of its occurrence in prehistoric deposits in those countries. An able writer in Woods and Forests (1884, June 11, p. 404) contests this view, and speaks of the existence of two beech woods in the north of Scotland, not 10 miles from the most easterly point of Britain, where the trees were larger than any other timber tree, not excepting the Scotch fir, and where it produced fertile seed, while that of the oak was abortive. These woods were high and exposed, but the soil was good. In view of the way in which the beech ascends in the Vosges and the Jura to cold, bleak situations, finally becoming at 4000 feet a dwarf shrub, which ​forms the timber line, it would be remarkable if the beech had not in early days gained a footing in Scotland and Ireland. The mere negative evidence is of little value, as scarcely any scientific work has yet been done in the way of exploration of the peat-mosses and other recent deposits; and the woods, from which are made the handles of numerous prehistoric implements preserved in our museums, have rarely been examined.
The beech occurs in a wild state throughout the greater part of Northern, Central, and Western Europe, usually growing gregariously in forests which, when undisturbed by man, have a tendency to spread and take the place of oak, which, owing to its inability to support such dense shade, is often suppressed by the beech.
In Norway, according to Schubeler, it is called bok, and is wild only near Laurvik, where he believes it to be truly indigenous, and is a small tree, the largest he measured being 7 feet 4 inches in girth. At Hosanger, however, a planted beech had in 1864 attained 75 feet at 81 years old, with a diameter of 27 inches. It ripens seed as far north as Trondhjem in good years, and exists in Nordland as far north as lat. 67°. 56.
In Sweden its most northerly wild habitat is Elfkalven, lat. 60°.35, though it has been planted as far north as lat. 64°.
In Russia the beech extends only a little way,—its eastern limit in Europe passing the Prussian coast of the Baltic between Elbing and Königsberg, about 54° 30' N. lat., and running south from Königsberg, where the last spontaneous beeches occur on the Brandenburg estate, continuing through Lithuania, eastern Poland, Volhynia, where beech woods still occur between lat. 52° and 50°, and Podolia to Bessarabia. It is absent from the governments of Kief and Kherson, but reappears in the Crimea, where, however, it is only met with in the mountains of the south-east coast. In the Caucasus, Persia, and Asia Minor it is replaced by the closely allied species, Fagus orientalis.
In Finland and at St. Petersburg it exists as a bush only, but is not wild. On the southern shores of the Baltic it forms large forests, and in Denmark is one of the most abundant and valuable timber trees, growing to as large a size and forming as clean trunks as it does farther south. Lyell speaks of it as follows:—"In the time of the Romans the Danish isles were covered as now with magnificent beech forests. Nowhere in the world does this tree flourish more luxuriantly than in Denmark, and eighteen centuries seem to have done little or nothing towards modifying the character of the forest vegetation. Yet in the antecedent bronze period there were no beech trees, or at most but a few stragglers, the country being then covered with oak."
At page 415 he says further—"In Denmark great changes were taking place in the vegetation. The pine, or Scotch fir, buried in the oldest peat, gave place at length to the oak; and the oak, after flourishing for ages, yielded in its turn to the ​beech; the periods when these three forest trees predominated in succession tallying pretty nearly with the ages of stone, bronze, and iron in Denmark."
All over Germany, except in the sandy plains of the north, it is one of the principal forest trees; but, so far as we have seen, does not—or is rarely allowed to attain—such a great size as in England. In Central and Southern Germany and in Eastern and Southern France it seems to be indigenous only in hilly districts and mountains.
In the north of France it attains perfection, and forms very large forests, usually mixed with oak, which sometimes contain trees of immense height, but is not planted as an ornament to parks as much as in England.
According to Huffel's Economie Forestière, 362 (1904), the finest beech forest in France is that of Retz, also called Villers Cotterets, which contains 37,000 acres, on a soil composed of deep sand, mixed with a slight proportion of clay. The trees consist almost entirely of beeches, there being only a small number of oaks and hornbeams. In the best plot of this forest, the canton of Dayancourt, which is 30 acres in extent, there were, in 1895, 1998 beech trees, 20 oaks, and 16 hornbeams. The beeches contain 329,433 cubic feet of timber, and reach a height of nearly 150 feet with clean stems of 80 to 90 feet. Their age in 1895 was 183 years, and they were considered to have reached their maximum development and to be on the point of going back.
In an account of the beech, Mr. Robinson has stated in Flora and Sylva that in the forest of Lyons-la-Foret, near Rouen, beeches of 160 feet in height are found; but on asking my friend M. Leon Pardé, inspector of forests at Beauvais (Oise), near Paris, whether this statement could be confirmed, he was good enough to send me a letter from the forest ofiicer there, who says that the tallest beech known in France is the one which I saw in the Forêt de Retz, when the English Arboricultural Society visited France in 1903, the height of which was given as 45 metres, about 147 feet. This tree measured 13 feet 2 inches in girth, and was straight and clear of branches to 91 feet. It was estimated by the English measurement to contain 560 cubic feet to the first branch, or 700 feet in all. This letter goes on to say that the tallest trees at Lyons-le-Forêt do not, in his opinion, exceed a total height of 35 metres, though one has doubtfully been stated to attain 37½ metres.
Two of the finest and tallest beeches in France are the one called "La Bourdigalle" in the Forêt de Lyons at La Haye (Seine Inf.), which is 35.80 metres high by 5.55 metres at 1 metre, and is supposed to be from 375 to 575 years old.
Another called "Le Trois Hêtres," in the forest of Brotonne at Guerbaville (Seine Inf.), has three straight clean stems rising from a single base to a height of nearly 35 metres, with a girth at 1 metre of about 18 feet. This very remarkable tree is figured on plate xi. of the work cited below.
In Switzerland pure beech forest is found as high as 4500 feet, and at 5000 assumes a shrubby habit.
In the Austrian Alps and Carpathians it is also a common tree, forming vast forests, which are sometimes pure, sometimes mixed with other trees.
​In Italy it is found only in the mountains; in the Apennines it is one of the dominant trees at|at from 3000 to 5000 feet. In the Sila mountains of Calabria, Elwes found it covering the mountains above the limit of chestnut, at from 3000 to 5000 feet and upwards. It is usually coppiced for charcoal and firewood; but it attains a considerable size, the largest measured being about 90 feet by 10–12 in girth. Here it is often mixed with the Calabrian pine. In Sicily it finds its southern limit on Mount Etna, where it ascends to 7200 feet.
In Spain the beech occurs in the Pyrenees and in the northern provinces only, its most southerly known habitat being in lat 40° 10' east of Cuença. In Portugal it has not, so far as we know, been recorded to exist.
The finest natural beech forests seen by us in Europe are on the northern slopes of the Balkans, where it grows as pure forest from near the foot of the mountains up to about 4000 feet. The trees are very straight and clean, but are being rapidly felled in those places where they are most accessible. Boissier says that the beech occurs in northern Greece on Mounts Pindus and Pelion. Elwes found it in Macedonia, on the north side of Mount Olympus.(A.H. and H.J.E.)
Cultivation
Seed is without doubt the best means of reproducing the tree, and I am inclined to think that the best and cleanest trunks are produced by seedlings which have never been transplanted, but opinions differ on this question. Seed is only produced in quantity at intervals of several years, and in some years a large proportion of the seeds, even in districts where the beech grows well, are mere empty husks.
The season of 1890 was probably the best for beech-mast in England which had occurred for many years, and I took particular pains, by enclosing certain spots where I found a number of germinating seeds in the following April, to protect them. But a severe frost, which occurred in the middle of May, destroyed all or nearly all the seedlings in the open, and those whose germination had been delayed by dense shade, or a thick covering of leaves, mostly withered away in the dry summer which ensued, before their rootlets had become established in the ground. Notwithstanding this, in most woods where rabbits, pheasants, and wood-pigeons are not so abundant as to devour all the seedlings and seeds, a good number of seedling beech of the year 1901 may still be found, and in the New Forest and elsewhere the ground in suitable spots is covered with seedlings.
Whether the seed should be sown when ripe or kept until the following spring is a question which must be decided by local conditions and experience, but where the danger of late spring frosts is great, I should prefer keeping it in an airy, dry loft spread thinly on a floor until April, or even the first week in May, as if February and March are mild, it will germinate in March and run great risk of being frozen in April or May. On March 11, 1901, I found a quantity of ​beech-mast on the lawn at Heythrop Park which had already germinated and had the radicle protruding as much as ½ inch. I gathered a basketful and sowed it two days later, covering the drills with beech-leaf mould. Most of this was above ground in April, and where not protected by branches over the beds, was destroyed by frost. Stored seed sown at the same time was almost all devoured by mice and rooks, which seemed to follow the drills with great care, whilst seed sown broadcast on a freshly ploughed surface and covered by one turn of a harrow, produced a certain number, but still a very small proportion of plants. These were, in June 1904, still very small and stunted, not more than 3–5 inches high, whilst seedlings of the same age raised on good rich sandy soil in an Edinburgh nursery were from 1½ to 2 feet high.
In the autumn of 1902 I found it impossible to procure any beech-mast in Great Britain, and after many inquiries procured some German seed early in April. Part of this was dibbled in a field of wheat, but so few plants could be found when the wheat was cut that the experiment was a practical failure. I sowed a part of this seed early in May in the garden, which germinated in June, and thus escaping spring frosts it grew without a check, and the seedlings were 4 to 6 inches high in the autumn.
Judging from these results it appears to me that, except in woods or where there is shelter, it is not economically desirable to raise beech from seed where it is to grow, and that spring sowing is preferable to autumn.
Seedlings are easy to transplant if their roots are not allowed to become dry, and the percentage of loss in 20,000 sent to me from Edinburgh in the winter 1902–3 was not more than 5 to 10 per cent. But if the trees are older and the roots are bad or have been heated in transit, or exposed too long to the air, the loss will be very great; and in most cases I should not plant out on a large scale trees of over two years old two years transplanted, though for specimen or lawn trees they may be safely moved when 6 to 10 feet high, or even more, if properly transplanted every two years.
Soil and Situation
Though the beech will grow on almost any soil except pure peat and heavy wet clay, it comes to its greatest size and perfection on calcareous soil or on deep sandy loam, and usually in pure woods unmixed with other trees.
The finest beech woods in England are, or rather were, in the Chiltern Hills, Bucks, in the neighbouring counties of Oxford and Herts; in the valleys of the Cotswold Hills; and in Sussex.
Sir John Dorington, M.P., tells me that he cut 2 acres 1 rood 13 poles of beech on a steep bank opposite his house at Lypiatt Park, Stroud, in 1897, growing on thin oolite limestone brash, which at 1s. 2d. per foot produced £562, equal to about 9634 feet. And off 4 acres of the same wood in 1875 he sold beech to the value of £1100, being at the rate of £275 per acre. This was supposed to be about 150 years old, and is the best actual return of value from timber on such land which I know of. He also bought a beech wood of 26 acres growing on similar soil in 1898, on which the timber, supposed to be about seventy years old, was valued at £2200, equal to £85 per acre. He cut £6oo worth of thinnings out of it the year ​following; and as the trees are growing fast, considers that it might now be valued at the same price per acre. Sir John considers, from experience in his own plantations, that planted beech will do as well as when naturally seeded. His old woodman, now dead, was for long of a contrary opinion, but changed his mind latterly from his own experience.
It is necessary to say something about the actual conditions and returns from the Buckinghamshire beech woods, which have been held up by some writers as an example of what may be done by following the system known as jardinage in France, which consists in thinning out the saleable trees every ten or twelve years and allowing natural seedlings to come up in their places.
During a visit of the Scottish Arboricultural Society on July 30, 1903, to this district, in which I took part, it was stated by one of the principal land agents in the district that £2 per acre was a common return over an average of years on woods managed on this system, which seems to have grown up during the last sixty years, partly through the legal disability of the owners to make clear fellings, and partly owing to the regular demand for clean beechwood of moderate size for chair-making. But what I saw myself led me to believe that though such a return may have been obtained for a short period on the best class of beech woods, it is not likely to continue, and that if an owner had a free hand and was not liable for waste, clear felling of the mature timber about once in 60–100 years would probably in the longrun be a better system. And this opinion was confirmed by Mr. George James, agent for the Hampden estate, who thinks that 15s. per acre, which is about the average rateable value of these woods, is as much as they are actually worth, and that when you get fine timber clean and well grown, as on Mr. Drake's estate at Amersham, many natural seedlings do not occur, but that on Earl Howe's estate at Dunn where, forty years ago, all or nearly all of the timber was cut, there is a good growth of young seedlings.
Professor Fisher of Cooper's Hill has written a very instructive article on the Chiltern Hill beech woods, in which he states that these are probably the northern and western British limit of the indigenous beech forest, which was probably eradicated during the glacial period in the north of England; though remains found in the submarine forest-bed at Cromer, in Norfolk, prove that it existed before this period farther east. He quotes measurements taken by Mr. A.S. Hobart Hampden, now director of the Forest School at Dehra Dun, India, which show that on the average it takes ninety years in this district for beech to attain 3 feet in girth at breast height, and that a full crop of seed cannot be expected from trees much younger than eighty years when grown in dense order. He agrees with me that in many of the woods, including those which belong to Eton College, overthinning has been prevalent, and states that rabbits and brambles have in many cases prevented the natural regeneration from being as complete as it must be to keep such woods in profitable condition under the decennial selection system. And as ​the furniture factories of High Wycombe are now largely supplied with American birch and other foreign timber, which can be imported at a cheaper rate than beech is locally worth, I am inclined to think that where these woods have become too thin to be profitable, they would pay better if the seeding of ash—which grows well on this land though not to the largest size—was encouraged, and the vacant spaces filled up with larch, which, when mixed with beech, usually keeps healthy and grows to a larger size than it does alone.
It is probable, however, that as our coal supplies diminish, the value of firewood in England will increase, and as beech is one of the best firewoods we have, and one of the most economical to convert into suitable sizes, I should advise its being more largely planted in districts where coal is distant and costly.
As a nurse to other forest trees, especially larch and oak, it has a value greater than any deciduous tree, because, if not allowed to overtop its neighbours, its shade and the decay of its leaves preserve the soil in a cool, moist, and fertile condition. On poor calcareous and chalk soil it is specially valuable, and should be planted in mixture with most kinds of other trees, provided rabbits can be permanently excluded; but on account of its thin bark it is never safe in a deep snow or in hard winters from rabbits, which will bark the roots of trees 100 years old as readily as young trees.
The distance apart at which beech should be left in plantations, must depend on the goodness of the soil and on the size at which the trees can be most profitably cut. The better the land the thicker it may stand, but on really poor soil it grows so slowly if crowded, that as soon as it has attained a sufficient height and cleaned itself from branches up to 30–50 feet, it should be thinned to about 150 trees or even less to the acre. And I have often observed that on soils which are not naturally favourable for beech, it will not under any circumstances grow so straight and clean as in woods where natural regeneration is easy.
Notwithstanding what Loudon and some German foresters say about the beech being unfit for coppice-wood, I can show beech stools of considerable age which have been regularly cut over at intervals of about eighteen years for at least a century; whilst the growth of shoots from the stool on the dry rocky bank in Chatcombe Wood, near Seven Springs, on the Cotswold Hills, is faster than that of ash similarly treated. In the mountains of Calabria also, I have seen hillsides covered with beech scrub which appeared to have been coppiced for firewood for a very long period. Therefore, in cases where the beech has been planted merely as a nurse to oak or other trees, and there is no deciduous tree better adapted to this purpose, I should not hesitate to cut over the trees if they seemed likely to smother their neighbours, with the expectation of getting a quantity of excellent firewood or small poles fit for turning, fifteen to twenty years later.
As a clipped hedge the beech is useful, but does not grow so fast at first as the hornbeam. An excellent example of this fact may be seen near the entrance to Dr. Watney's place at Buckholt, near Pangbourne, where the two are growing in the same hedge; the beech treated in this way keeps its leaves all the winter and makes good shelter.
Beech Avenues
Sir Hugh Beevor has sent me a photograph of a remarkable avenue of beech trees called Finch's Avenue, near Watford, which is composed of straight, clean, closely planted trees up to 120 feet high (Plate 2).
As an avenue tree the beech is one of the most stately and imposing that we have; but probably because of the difficulty of getting tall, straight standards from nurseries, and their tendency to branch too near the ground when planted thinly, they are not so much in vogue as they were two centuries ago. One of the finest examples I know of in England is the grand avenue in Savernake Forest, the property of the Marquess of Ailesbury. This was planted in 1723, and extends for nearly 5 miles from Savernake House to the hill above Marlborough. It is described and figured in the Transactions of the English Arboricultural Society, v. p. 405, and though the trees are not individually of quite such fine growth as those at Ashridge, yet, forming a continuous green aisle meeting overhead, for such an immense distance, it is even more beautiful than the elm avenue at Windsor, or the lime avenue at Burghley, and surpasses both of them in length. The Savernake avenue, however, is not like those above mentioned, planted at regular distances, but seems to have been cut out of a belt.
The beech avenue at Cornbury Park, the property of Vernon Watney, Esq., to whom I am indebted for the following particulars, is, on account of the great size of the trees, one of the most imposing in England. It was probably planted or designed by John Evelyn, whose diary, 17th October, 1664, says: "I went with Lord Visct. Cornbury to Cornbury in Oxfordshire, to assist him in the planting of the park, and beare him company, dined at Uxbridge, lay at Wicckam (Wycombe)." They reached Cornbury the following day, and among the entries for that day is the following: "We designed an handsom chapell that was yet wanting as Mr. May had the stables, which indeed are very faire having set out the walkes in the park and gardens." This Lord Cornbury who, after his father's death, became Lord Clarendon, records in his diary, "1689, September 25. Wednesday.—The elms in the park were begun to be pruned." This avenue is 800 yards long, and runs from the valley where the great beech grew, up the hill to the house. Many of the trees seem to have been pollarded when young at about 15 feet high, but have shot up immense straight limbs to a height of 100 to 110 feet, some even taller.
The Ten Rides in Cirencester Park affords a good illustration of the value of the beech for bordering the broad rides through a great mass of woodland; but the trees here, as at Cornbury and in so many of our old parks, have seen their best days, and when blanks are made by wind or decay, it is beyond the power of man to restore the regular appearance of such a vista.
Whatever pains may be taken to replant the gaps, the trees never seem to run up as they do when all planted together, and the art of planting avenues does not seem to be so well understood or so much practised now, as it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Remarkable Trees
As an instance of the rapid growth of the beech, I will quote from a letter of Robert Marsham of Stratton Strawless, near Norwich, to Gilbert White, dated 24th July 1790, in which he says: "I wish I had begun planting with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), and I might have seen large trees of my own raising. But I did not begin beeches till 1741, and then by seed; and my largest is now at 5 feet, 6' 3" round, and spreads a circle of + 20 yards diamr. But this has been digged round and washed, etc." In Gilbert White's reply to this letter, dated Selborne, 13th August 1790, he says: "I speak from long observation when I assert, that beechen groves to a warm aspect grow one-third faster than those that face to the N. and N.E., and the bark is much more clean and smooth."
Marsham, replying to White on 31st August (it seems to have been at least fifteen days' post in those days from Norfolk to Hants), says: "Mr. Drake has a charming grove of beech in Buckinghamshire, where the handsomest tree (as I am informed by a friend to be depended on) runs 75 feet clear, and then about 35 feet more in the head. I went on purpose to see it. It is only 6 F. 6 I. round, but straight as possible. Some beeches in my late worthy friend Mr. Naylor's park at Hurstmonceux in Sussex ran taller and much larger, but none so handsome." In a later letter he speaks of one being felled here in 1750 which "ran 81 feet before it headed."
Sir Hugh Beevor informs me that he found it impossible to identify with certainty the trees measured at Stratton Strawless by Marsham, which we shall have occasion to allude to later.
It would be impossible to mention more than a few of the finest beech trees in this country, but the photographs which have been reproduced represent a few of those which I have seen myself.
In Hants there are many fine beeches in the New Forest, of which the wood called Mark Ash contains some of the most picturesque, and is to my eyes one of the most beautiful woods from a naturalist's point of view in England, or even in Europe, though it is, like so many of the fine old woods in the New Forest, deteriorating from causes which are described elsewhere. One of the finest trees here is over 100 feet high and 24 feet in girth, dividing at about 10 feet into six immense erect limbs, and entirely surrounded, as are many of the trees in this wood, by a dense thicket of holly.
There is another beech in Woodfidley in the New Forest which Mr. Lascelles considers the finest beech in the forest, and of which the measurement as given by him is 120 feet high, 14 feet 6 inches in girth at 5 feet, carrying its girth well up, with an estimated cubic content of 650 feet.
In Old Burley enclosure is another magnificent beech, rather shut in by other trees, and therefore difficult to measure for height. I estimated it at 110 feet high. The girth was 18 feet, dividing at about 25 feet into two main trunks, which carried a ​girth of perhaps 8 feet up to a great height. I have no doubt this tree contains 700 to 800 feet of timber.
At Knole Park, near Sevenoaks, there are some splendid trees of the park type, with very wide-spreading limbs, two of which are known as the King and Queen Beeches. The King Beech is surrounded by a fence, and many of its branches are supported by chains. Strutt, who figures it, gives its height as 105 feet by 24 in girth at 13 feet. When I measured it in 1905 it was about 100 feet by 30 in girth at 5 feet, with a bole 10 feet high. It has the largest girth of any beech I know of now standing in England (Plate 12). The Queen Beech is 90 to 100 feet high and 28 feet in girth. I am not sure whether this or the last is the one recorded by Loudon, iii. 1977, as having a diameter of 8 feet 4 inches, a height of 85 feet, and a spread of branches of 352 feet diameter.
There are many fine tall beeches in the park of Earl Bathurst at Cirencester, of which Plate 1 gives a good idea, and shows the reproduction from seed in this part of the park to be very good, though a considerable number of other trees, such as ash and sycamore, are growing as well or better than the young beeches under the shade of the tall ones, which in this view are not so remarkable for their size as for their clean cylindrical trunks.
At Ashridge Park, Bucks, the property of Earl Brownlow, are perhaps the most beautiful and best grown beeches in all England, not in small numbers, but in thousands. Though the soil is neither deep nor rich, being a sort of flinty clay overlying limestone, it evidently suits the beech to perfection, and in some parts of the park there is hardly a tree which is not straight, clean, and branchless for 40 to 60 feet, whilst in other parts, where the soil is heavier and wetter, and where oaks grow among the bracken to a great size, the beeches are of a more branching and less erect type.
The largest and finest beech, from a timber point of view, at Ashridge, known as the King Beech, was blown down about 1891, and was purchased for ₤36 by Messrs. East of Berkhampstead. Loudon says that this tree in 1844 was 114 feet high, with a clear trunk of 75 feet, which was 5 feet 6 inches in girth at that height. Evidently this was less than its real height. Mr. Josiah East tells me that as it stood it had about 90 feet of clean trunk, of which the lower 15 feet was partly rotten and not measured. The sound part was cut into three lengths as follows:—
| 17 | feet × 29 inches, ¼ girth | ... = | 99 | cubic feet. |
| 28 | feet„ × 25 inches,„ ¼ girth„ | ... = | 136 | cubic„ feet.„ |
| 30 | feet„ × 23 inches,„ ¼ girth„ | ... = | 110 | cubic„ feet.„ |
| butt, say, 15 | feet„ × 36 inches,„ ¼ girth„ | ... = | 135 | cubic„ feet.„ |
| 90 | | | 480 |
The branches were partly rotten and much broken in falling, so that they were only fit for firewood. But the celebrated Queen Beech remains, and though in one or two places it shows slight signs of decay, it may, I hope, live for a century or more, as it is in a fairly sheltered place, and has no large spreading limbs to be torn off by the wind. This extremely perfect and beautiful tree was photographed with great ​care from three positions by Mr. Wallis (Plate 3), and as carefully measured by Sir Hugh Beevor and myself in Sept. 1903. We made it as nearly as possible to be 135 feet high (certainly over 130), and this is the greatest height I know any deciduous tree, except the elm, to have attained in Great Britain. Its girth was 12 feet 3 inches, and its bole straight and branchless for about 80 feet, so that its contents must be about 400 feet to the first limb. Other extraordinary beeches at Ashridge are figured. Plate 4 is an illustration of natural inarching of a very peculiar type: the larger tree is 17 feet 6 inches in girth, the smaller, 4 feet 9 inches, and the connecting branch 12 feet long. It passes into the other tree without any signs to indicate how the inarching took place, and might almost have been a root carried up by the younger tree from the ground, as it has no buds or twigs on it. There are several beeches at Ashridge with very large and curious bosses on the trunk; one of these (Plate 5) at the base measured 21 feet over the boss, another had a large burr growing out of the side of a straight, clean, healthy tree at 40 feet from the ground. Such burrs are formed on the trunks of healthy as well as of diseased beeches, but I am not sure whether they ever have their origin in injuries produced by insects, birds, or other extraneous causes. Sometimes they have a horny or almost coral-like growth. Such burrs when cut through have an ornamental grain, which might be used for veneers when sufficiently compact and solid, but are left to rot on the ground by timber merchants, who as a rule place no value on such products.
In some parts of this park the beeches show a remarkably wide-spreading network of snake-like roots on the surface, which, though not uncommon in this tree when growing on shallow soil, are here unusually well developed. There is a remarkable beech clump to the east of the house containing 26 trees in a circle of 197 paces (11 of them grow in a circle of 78 paces), of which every tree is large, clean, and straight. The largest of them is about 125, perhaps 130, feet high, and 13 feet 10 inches in girth, and the average contents of the trees probably over 200 feet. I do not think I have ever seen in England such a large quantity of timber on so small an area.
But though it is doubtful whether any place in England can boast so many perfect beech trees as Ashridge, this park contains also some of the finest limes, the largest horse-chestnuts, and the most thriving and bulky chestnuts; and in a wood not far off is an ash which is much the best-grown tree of its species, if not the largest, that I have seen in England. All things considered, I doubt whether there is a more interesting and beautiful type of an English park than Ashridge, for though it contains few exotic trees, and no conifers except some Scotch pines, it has a magnificent herd of red, of Japanese, and of fallow deer, as well as flocks of St. Kilda sheep and of white Angora goats.
At Rotherfield Park, Hants, there is an immense pollard beech, of which I have a photograph kindly sent me by the owner, Mr. A.E. Scott, who gives its girth as 28 feet 3 inches at the narrowest point, 3 feet from the ground.
​At Slindon Wood, near Petworth, Sussex, between the South Downs and the sea, which is seven miles distant, on the property of Major Leslie, there was in 1903 one of the finest beech woods in England, growing on chalk soil, of which I have particulars from Mr. C.H. Greenwood, and of which I give an illustration from a photograph sent me by him (Plate 6). Mr. Greenwood states that 634 trees were recently cut and sold in this wood, many of them being 70 and several 80 to 90 feet long to the first limb, and quarter girthing 20 inches in the middle. One tree now standing measures, without the top, 70' x 26" = 320 feet, and on one acre at the east side of the wood are standing 60 which would average 150 feet each, making 9000 cubic feet to the acre. The tallest tree is 90 feet to the first bough, with 21 inches ¼ girth = 275 feet. This is perhaps the largest yield of beech per acre of which I have any record in England.
In Windsor Park there are some fine old beeches, of which three are figured by Menzies. His plate 4 shows a remarkable old pollard at Ascot Gate 30 feet in girth, which he supposed to be 800 years old, and another, his plate 6, on Smith's lawn, of similar age and 31 feet 9 inches in girth. The third, Queen Adelaide's Beech, is a tree of no great size or beauty. It measured in 1864 8 feet 6 inches in girth, when supposed by Menzies to be 140 years old. In 1904 it had only increased 10 inches in girth. The finest beech now growing at Windsor—Mr. Simmonds, the deputy-surveyor of the Park, who was good enough to show it to me, agrees in this—is a tree near Cranbourne Tower, which in March 1904 measured 125 feet by 15, with a fine clean bole, but not equal to that of the Queen Beech at Ashridge.
The two largest beech trees, of whose measurement I have exact particulars, were both blown down in the heavy gale of September 1903, I believe on the same night. One of these was at Cowdray Park in Sussex, the property of the Earl of Egmont, and grew on sandy soil near the top of the great chestnut avenue at a considerable elevation, perhaps 400 feet. I saw it lying on the ground not long after, and obtained from Mr. Barber, steward on the estate, the following careful measurements:—
The other was the great beech at Cornbury Park, of which I give a photograph taken after its fall (Plate 7), that gives an idea of its immense size. I saw the stump of this tree two years afterwards, and counted about 230 rings in it, which justify the belief that it may have been planted by Evelyn. Mr. C.A. Fellowes, agent for the property, had the tree carefully measured after its fall, and gives its height as 120 feet, girth 21 feet 4 inches. Cubic contents 1796 feet (nothing under 6 inches quarter girth being measured).
A magnificent beech growing in Studley Park, the seat of the Marquis of Ripon, was figured by Loudon, iii. 1955, and is there stated to have been 114 feet high. ​Mr. O.H. Wade, agent for the estate, tells me that this tree cannot now be identified.
Another celebrated tree, mentioned by Loudon as Pontey's Beech, was measured for him in 1837 by the direction of the Duke of Bedford in the Park at Woburn Abbey. It was then 100 feet high, with a clean bole of 50 feet, and was 12 feet 6 inches in girth at 4 feet. When visited in July 1903 it was about the same height and 14 feet 6 inches in girth, and was estimated to contain nearly 600 cubic feet.
A tree known as the Corton Beech at Boyton, Wilts, once the home of Mr. Lambert, author of the Genus Pinus, and mentioned by Loudon as one of the largest in England, was blown down a few years ago, and I have not been able to get its dimensions.
There were some very fine beeches at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, one of which Loudon gives as 110 feet by 14 feet 2 inches, with a clean bole of 70 feet, and the other as containing 940 feet of timber, but when I visited this fine place in 1905 I could not identify either of these trees as still standing, though I saw many in Raywood of great size, with clean boles of 50 to 60 feet. A tree standing outside the garden wall was remarkable for the very rugged bark on its trunk, which up to 8 to 10 feet from the ground was more like that of an elm than a beech.
In Scotland, though the beech does not attain quite the same height and size as in some parts of England, it is a fine and commonly planted tree.
The self-layered beech at Newbattle Abbey near Dalkeith, the property of the Marquess of Lothian, eight miles from Edinburgh, must be looked on as the most remarkable, if not the largest, of all the beeches of the park or spreading type now standing in Britain; and though difficult to represent such a tree by photography in a manner to show its great size, every pains has been taken by Mr. Wallace of Dalkeith to do it justice (Plates 8 and 9). This splendid tree is growing in light alluvial soil in front of the house, and not far from the banks of the North Esk river, and may be 300 years old or more. It was in Loudon's time 88 feet high, and the trunk 9 feet in diameter (probably at the base), with a spread of branches of 100 feet. When I visited it in February 1904 under the guidance of Mr. Ramsay, who has known the tree for many years, I made it about 105 feet high, with a girth at about 5 feet—which is near the narrowest part of the bole—of 21 feet 6 inches. The trunk, as will be seen from the figure, is unusual in shape, and shows no sign of decay except where one large limb has been blown off, and this has been carefully covered with lead. But the numerous branches which have drooped to the ground, taken root, and formed a circle of subsidiary stems round the main trunk, are its most peculiar feature, and may remain as large trees for centuries after the central stem decays. The first of these has produced 7 stems of various sizes growing into fresh trees, at a distance of 8 to 12 yards from the trunk. The second has 2 large and 3 smaller stems. The third has 3 large stems about 30 to 40 feet high and 3 to 4 feet in girth. The fourth has 3 large and 6 smaller ones. The fifth is not yet firmly rooted, but is fastened down in several places to prevent the wind from moving it. The total circumference of ​these branches is about 400 feet. Detailed measurements by Mr. Ramsay are given below.
A similar instance of self-layering, perfectly natural, was to be seen in the Kew Gardens, where a very fine beech, though by no means such a giant as the Newbattle tree, was surrounded by a fence in order to protect it. This tree, however, having become seriously decayed, had its main stem cut down in 1904.
Among the best specimens I have seen in Scotland are those at Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh, the seat of the Marquess of Linlithgow, where I measured a tree 110 feet high, with a clean bole of about 50 feet, and a girth of 12 feet. At Blair Drummond, near Perth, the seat of H.S. Home Drummond, Esq., Henry measured one of 117 feet high by 16 feet 6 inches in girth, and at Methven Castle, the seat of Colonel Smythe, another which is 120 feet high by 17 feet 2 inches in girth. This tree divides into three stems at about 20 feet, and is the tallest of which we have any certain record in Scotland. At Gordon Castle is a very fine beech with spreading roots (Plate 10) measuring 95 feet by 15 feet 8 inches. At Castle Menzies, Perthshire, the property of Sir Neil Menzies, is a very fine beech, which is described by Hunter as a vegetable "Siamese Twins." Whether originally two trees or one is difficult to say, but it seemed to me to be from a single root which had forked a little above the ground and then grown together again, leaving an opening through which Hunter says an ordinary sized person might pass, but which in 1904 was smaller. At Inverary Castle is another example of an inosculated beech, known as the Marriage Tree, which, from a photograph published by Valentine, does not seem to be so striking as the one at Castle Menzies.
​There are two beeches standing on a mound near the road to Lochfynehead in the Park at Inverary, which are known as the Doom trees, because in former times they were said to have been used as a gibbet for criminals; the largest of them measures 75 feet by 16 feet 5 inches. The Duke of Argyll, however, doubts this tradition.
There is another very fine beech, the largest I know of in the West Highlands, at Ardkinglas, at the head of Lochfyne, under which Prince Charles's men are said to have camped in 1745. Though of no great height it has a girth of 18 feet 8 inches, and spread of branches 30 yards in diameter.
In Ayrshire the largest beech is at Stair House. According to Renwick, in 1903 it was 100 feet high, and 18 feet 9 inches at 4 feet 3 inches above the ground. At Kilkerran, in the same county, Renwick records a beech 21 feet 3½ inches at 3 feet from the ground, which, however, had a bole of only 4 feet. Other large beeches in Scotland occur at Eccles in Dumfriesshire, and at Belton in East Lothian. The Eccles Beech, according to Sir R. Christison, was little inferior to the Newbattle Beech; according to Hutchinson, in 1869 it was 20 feet in girth at 4 feet up. I learn from Dr. Sharp that it has been dead for some years. The Belton Beech in 1880 was 20 feet 4 inches girth at 5 feet, with a 13-feet bole and a height of 63 feet.
One of the most striking effects produced by the beech in Scotland is the celebrated beech hedge of Meikleour, in Perthshire, on the Marquess of Lansdowne's property. An account of this hedge is given in the Gardeners Chronicle, Dec. 15, 1900. This hedge forms the boundary between the grounds and the highway, and has to be cut in periodically, which is done by men working on a long ladder, from which they are able to reach with shears to about 60 feet. Local history says that this hedge was planted in 1745, and that the men who were planting it left their work to fight at the battle of Culloden, hiding their tools under the hedge, and never returning to claim them. It is 580 yards long, and composed of tall, straight stems planted about 18 inches apart, and nearly touching at the base. The average height of the trees, as I am informed by Mr. Donald Matheson, is 95 feet, and their average girth at 3 feet is 18 to 36 inches. He adds that "close to the ground they are as fresh and green as a young hedge." An illustration of this hedge, taken specially for our work by Mr. D. Milne of Blairgowrie, gives a good idea of its appearance in October 1903 (Plate 11).
I am informed by Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P., that a remarkably similar occurrence is on record at Achnacarry, on the property of Cameron of Lochiel; here the trees were laid in ready to plant in 1715, and the men were also called off to take part in the rebellion of that year. The trees were never planted, and have grown up in a slanting position close together just as they were left.
In a paper on the "Old and Remarkable Trees of Scotland," published in 1867 by the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, many other remark​able beeches are mentioned, of which one at Edenbarnet in the parish of Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire, is said to be 140 feet high; but the measurements of many of the trees in this compilation are so unreliable that I cannot believe them without confirmation.
J. Kay, in Scottish Arb. Soc. Transactions, ix. p. 75, mentions a tree in the Beech Walk at Mount Stuart in Bute, which in 1881 was 120 feet by 11 feet 9 inches, with a clean bole 60 feet high, and contained 450 feet of timber.
In Ireland the beech is probably not a native tree. According to Hayes it was first introduced at Shelton, near Arklow, where, in 1794, there were beech trees as much as 15 feet in girth, and many carrying a girth of 10 feet for more than 40 feet high. Another growing at Tiny Park was 16 feet 3 inches in girth, and continued nearly of that girth for 36 feet. Hayes also mentions, as an instance of the rapid growth of the beech in Ireland, "several at Avondale, which were transplanted within thirty years on a swelling ground at that time much exposed to storm, are now (1793) from 7 feet 6 inches to 6 feet 6 inches at a foot from the ground, and continue nearly of that size from 8 to 20 feet in height. Of two which were planted in a richer soil near the river, and are now (1793) just fifty-four years from the mast, one measures 9 feet round, the other 9 feet 6 inches."
The finest beeches in Ireland, probably, are those occurring at Woodstock (Co. Kilkenny), the seat of E.K.B. Tighe, Esq.—a property which is remarkable all round for magnificent trees of many kinds, and which is in the possession of a family that for generations has been deeply interested in forestry and arboriculture. The measurements of many trees have been taken periodically for nearly a century. The best beeches on this beautiful property occur in the meadow land by the River Nore, close to the village of Inistioge. The following table gives an interesting series of measurements of these beeches:—
| No. | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Girth | Height | Height |
| No. | 1825. | 1825. | 1830. | 1830. | 1834. | 1834. | 1846. | 1846. | 1901. | 1901. | 1904. | 1904. | 1901. | 1904. |
| | ft. | in. | ft. | in. | ft. | in. | ft. | in. | ft. | in. | ft. | in. | | |
| A$_3$ | 10 | 9 | 11 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 12 | 6 | 20 | 6 | 20 | 7 | 81 | 86 |
| C$_7$ | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 12 | 7 | 17 | 3 | 17 | 9 | 97 | 99 |
| B$_3$ | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 12 | 5 | 14 | 0 | ... | ... | 91 | ... |
| B$_5$ | 12 | 1 | 12 | 10 | 14 | 4 | 15 | 4 | 18 | 9 | 18 | 10 | 113 | 117 |
| B$_6$ | 11 | 10 | 12 | 3 | 13 | 8 | 14 | 10 | 17 | 9 | ... | ... | 108 | ... |
| B$_2$ | 11 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 10 | 13 | 8 | 15 | 8 | 16 | 4 | 112 | 109 |
| B$_1$ | 11 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 12 | 7 | 13 | 8 | 16 | 6 | ... | ... | 106 | ... |
| B$_9$ | 11 | 9 | ... | ... | 12 | 9 | 14 | 0 | 16 | 7 | ... | ... | 120 | ... |
| B$_8$ | ... | ... | ... | ... | 9 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 12 | 3 | ... | ... | 100 | ... |
The measurements up to 1901 are from the foresters' records; those of 1904 were taken by Henry. The beech A$_3$, has a great bole, dividing into three limbs at 18 feet up, and is a very wide-spreading tree. C$_7$ is pressed on each side by two lime trees, and is narrow in shape. The most remarkable of all is B$_5$, which is probably the tallest beech in Ireland.
​As showing the rate of growth of the beech in Co. Galway, a beech measured by Lord Clonbrock at Clonbrock was 11 feet 3 inches in girth in 1871, and 15 feet in 1903. A beech hedge at Kilruddery, Co. Wicklow, the seat of Lord Meath, said to be 300 years old, was measured by Henry in 1904, when it was 18 feet through and 29 feet high. It is clipped regularly, and forms a dense, impenetrable mass.
Beech Coccus
We are indebted to Mr. R. Newstead of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, for particulars of the coccus which in some seasons, and in certain parts of England, has been of late years very injurious to the beech. A fuller account of this insect has been written by him in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. 1900, vol. xxiii. p. 249, and in a leaflet recently published by the Board of Agriculture. From this we take the following precis:—
The trunks and, less frequently, the main branches of good-sized beech trees are often covered, to a greater or less extent, with irregular spots of a white cottony substance. The latter is really the covering of white felted wax fibres secreted by the felted beech coccus (Cryptococcus fagi, Bärensprung), a minute, hemispherical, lemon-yellow insect, about one twenty-fifth of an inch long, without legs, but furnished on the underside with a well-developed beak, which it buries in the bark for the purpose of sucking up the juices of the tree. When once a tree is attacked the number of individuals of the pest becomes in time so great that it is doubtful whether a badly-infected tree ever recovers unless active measures be taken against the insect. The waxy covering of the latter is sufficient to protect it against the effects of any of the insecticides usually applied by spraying, and its habit of preferring the deepest part of the fissures in the bark makes it difficult to remove with certainty. The only remedy at all likely to succeed is that of thoroughly scrubbing the bark with a stiff brush and soap and water, the latter mixed in the proportion of half a pound of soft soap to each gallon of water; and the success of this treatment depends for the most part on the amount of care taken to dislodge the insects by means of the brush.
Timber
The timber of the beech is not valued so highly in England as abroad, where it is considered as the best fuel in general use, and is little used in carpentry or building, as it is hard, brittle, and liable to be attacked by beetles. It weighs when green about 65 lbs. to the cube foot, when dry about 50. Its durability is said to be increased by seasoning it in water, and it is more durable when entirely under water than most timbers, being highly recommended by Matthews and Laslett for planking the sides and bottoms of ships. In France it is used, when creosoted, for railway sleepers, but requires more than twice as much creosote to preserve it as oak does, and is not used in England, so far as I know, for this purpose. It is also used for tool handles, rollers, butchers' blocks, brush heads, planes, and general turnery, but decays rapidly when exposed to the weather.
​The principal centres for beechwood furniture in England are at High Wycombe, and Newport Pagnell in Bucks, and the price of clean trunks in these districts is from 1s. to 1s. 6d. per cube foot standing, according to the situation. Beechwood is also used largely for making saddle-trees, and in consequence of the great demand for these during the South African war, went up to a very high price in 1901, when I was offered 1s. 4d. a foot standing for beech trees which in ordinary times would not be worth more than 8d. or 9d. a foot. Being easy to split it is, where there is a demand for firewood, easier to dispose of the branches and rough parts of the tree for this purpose, but the amount of waste is much greater in the beech than in some other trees, unless grown in thick woods. For more minute particulars of the characters and uses of this timber. Stone's Timbers of Commerce, p. 231, and Loudon, pp. 1959–64, may be consulted with advantage. (H.J.E.)
* ↑ Blume, in Mus. Lugd. Bat. i. 306.
* ↑ Mayr, l.c.
* ↑ 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.
* ↑ Radde, Pflanzenverbreitung in den Kaukasusländern, 182 (1899).
* ↑ Schneider, Laubholzkunde, 152.
* ↑ Matsumura, Shokubutsu-mei-i, 123.
* ↑ Shirasawa, l.c. 86.
* ↑ Sargent, Forest Flora of Japan, 70.
* ↑ Forestry of Japan (1904), p. 22.
* ↑ There is much difference in the colour and roughness of the bark, which varies with age, soil, situation, and exposure. On the dry, sandy soil of Kew Gardens this bark of the beech is so different from that seen on calcareous soils that it might almost be mistaken for a hornbeam, and Elwes has observed the same in the Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh, where the trees are exposed to the salt east wind. These variations are not, however, entirely caused by local conditions, but are sometimes found in trees standing close together. Professor Balfour pointed out to Elwes two beeches in the Edinburgh garden of which one has the bark rough and scaly, and regularly comes into leaf fifteen to twenty days before another tree similar in size which grows next to it, whose bark is smooth and silvery. Whether these variations are correlated with any differences in the wood does not seem to have been proved in England; but it is evident that for cold and exposed situations it would be advantageous to sow only the seed of the late leafing and flowering trees.
* ↑ The beech seedling has its cotyledons green and above ground; those of the oak and chestnut remain in the soil. In the hornbeam, hazel, and alder, the cotyledons are aerial, but the first pair of true leaves above them are alternate.
* ↑ 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.
* ↑ Arboretum Notes, p. 117.
* ↑ Garden, July 30, 1904, Answers to Correspondents.
* ↑ Gard. Chron. June 23, 1888, p. 779.
* ↑ Gard. Chron. 1892, xii. 669. This is an account of Späth's novelties by Dr. Edmund Göze of the Greifswald Botanic Gardens.
* ↑ Arboretum Notes, p. 118.
* ↑ Gard. Mag. 1894, p. 339, with figure.
* ↑ Gard. Chron. June 20, 1903, fig. 155.
* ↑ Ibid. Dec. 24, 1870, p. 70.
* ↑ Ibid. Dec. 29, 1900, suppl.
* ↑ Garden, Dec. 5, 1903, p. 167.
* ↑ For a complete account of the occurrence of this curious form in the forests of the east of France, see Godron, Les Hetres tortillards des environs de Nancy, Mém. de l'Acad. de Stanislas, Nancy, 1869. Godron says that their growth is infinitely slower than that of normal beech. See also Rev. Hort., 1861, p. 84, and 1864, p. 127.
* ↑ The parasol beech, or a form closely like it, has been found in Ireland, according to a correspondent of Woods and Forests, Jan. 1885, who writes as follows:—"Near to Parkanour, in Tyrone, the residence of Mr. J. Burgess, stand two beeches, which at a short distance resemble heaps of leaves more than trees. They were found in the woods sixty years since, and are from 6 feet to 8 feet in height and 15 feet diameter, and of dense drooping habit. Upon creeping inside, I found them to branch off at 2 feet or 3 feet from the ground, where one was nearly 5 feet in circumference. The arms and branches are not unlike corkscrews. The inferior branches and malted rubbish, if cleared out, would greatly improve their appearance, as the singular growth would then be visible. They might, if sent out, become a valuable adjunct to the upright yew, which flourishes in Ireland, the finest of which I have yet seen being 24 feet high and 12 feet through, and well filled in the centre.— C.I."
* ↑ C. Reid, Origin of British Flora, 28, 69, 146.
* ↑ B.G. v. 12.
* ↑ Loudon, Gard. Mag. 1839, p. 9.
* ↑ N. H. xvi. 7.
* ↑ Georg. ii. 71.
* ↑ The name in Irish is crann sleamhain, the "slippery tree," so-called from the smoothness of the bark.
* ↑ In a paper by H.B. Watt on the "Scottish Forests in Early Historic Times," printed in Annals of the Andersonian Nat. Soc. ii. 91, Glasg., 1900, which contains many interesting particulars of the oak and other trees, no mention is made of the Beech. In the Highland Society's Gaelic Dictionary (1828), faidhbhile is given as the word for beech; here faidh is cognate with fagus, bhile being one of the Gaelic terms for tree. This name is also known in Ulster.
* ↑ Schubeler, Viridarium Norvegicum, vol. i. 521.
* ↑ Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 2nd. ed. 1873, pp. 17, 415.
* ↑ Trans. Eng. Arb. Soc. v. pt. ii. p. 209.
* ↑ Gadeau de Kerville, Les Vieux Arbres de la Normandie, 143 (1893).
* ↑ Flora Orientalis, iv. 1175.
* ↑ Halácsy, Consp. Flor. Græcæ, iii. 124 (1904), says that the beech forms in Greece large woods in the mountains, and gives its distribution as follows:—Thessaly—Mountains of Pindus, Chassia, Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion; Acarnania—Mount Kravara; Ætolia—Mount Oxyes.
* ↑ Land Agent's Record, April 9 and 16, 1904.
* ↑ A paper by Mr. L.S. Wood, in the Trans. Eng. Arbor. Soc. v. 285 (1903), gives many particulars of the beech woods in this district.
* ↑ Cf. Loudon, loc. cit. p. 1965.
* ↑ Cf. Trans. of the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. ii. 133–195.
* ↑ According to Loudon, iii. 1977, this tree was in 1844 110 feet high, 10 feet in girth at 2 feet, and 74 feet to the first branch.
* ↑ History of Windsor Great Park and Windsor Forest, 1864.
* ↑ Newbattle Abbey, Midlothian, N.B. Measurement of the great beech tree, August 25, 1903, by Mr. John Ramsay. Girth in feet, inches, etc., of trunk— At the ground 43 feet 8 inches About 1 footup 37 feet„ About„ 2½ feet up„ 27 feet„ 8 inches.„ About„ 3 feet„ up„ 25 feet„ 9½ inches.„ About„ 4 feet„ up„ 23 feet„ 1½ inches.„ About„ 4½ feet„ up„ 21 feet„ 11½inches.„ About„ 5 feet„ up„ 20 feet„ 3½ inches.„ About„ 6 feet„ up„ 19 feet„ 7½ inches.„ The ground measurement was taken by allowing the tape to lie on the roots as near to the uprising of the buttresses as possible, and is necessarily vague. The measurement at 6 feet up is the most correct, being taken on a line marked at intervals all round with white paint for future comparison. Circumference of foliage fully 400 feet; diameter of foliage averages 130 to 140 feet; height, 112 feet. The following are a few of the branches with the girth of them, and the girth of the branches springing up from the main branches rooted in the ground:— No. 1.—Branch girth, 1 foot 10 inches, with two branches growing up from it; girth of both these new branches, 4 feet 5 inches each. No. 2.—Branch girth, 1 foot 8 inches, having three branches springing up from it, one 5 feet 5 inches, one 5 feet 1 inch, one 23 inches by 1 foot 11 inches in girth. No. 3.—Branch girth, 12½ inches, having three branches springing up from it, one 4 feet 7½ inches, one 24½ inches, one 4 feet 4 inches in girth. No. 4.—Branch girth, 12 inches, with two branches springing up from it, one 2 feet 8½ inches, one 12 inches in girth. No. 5.—Branch girth, 1 foot 7 inches, with three branches springing up from it, one 2 feet 4½ inches, one 12 inches, one 18 inches in girth. No. 6.—Branch girth, 2 feet 4 inches, with five branches springing up from it, one 4 feet 4 inches, one 3 feet 8 inches, one 4 feet, one 3 feet 4 inches, one I foot 11 inches in girth.
* ↑ Hunter, Woods, Forests, and Estates of Perthshire, 1883, p. 397.
* ↑ Renwick in British Association Handbook, p. 140 (1901). We are much indebted to Mr. John Renwick for measurements and descriptions of large and interesting trees in the south-west of Scotland.
* ↑ Hunter, loc. cit. 379.
* ↑ Hayes, A Practical Treatise on Planting (1794), pp. 109, 118.