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Beech Tree - North American Trees

This is an Excerpt from the Book called “NATIVE TREES FOR NORTH AMERICAN LANDSCAPES “. Continue reading to learn more about Beech Tree – North American Trees, thanks to the author.

Fagus Grandifolia 

BEECH 

DESCRIPTION: Due to the combination of its expansive range and distinctive appearance, the gray-barked beech is among the most familiar forest trees of eastern North America. Beech associates and competes with sugar maple (Acer saccharum) over a vast range for top honors as the climax species of the hardwood forest. Both trees are very tolerant of shade and can develop under the canopies of other trees, but they differ in their reproductive strategies. 

Fagus Grandifolia

Maple produces great quantities of seedlings, some of which invariably survive. Beech, though, cannot be so dependent upon seedlings, since most of its seeds are eaten by wildlife. Consequently, once it becomes established it develops occasional suckers from its vast system of surface roots. Many supposed beech “seedlings” in the forest are interconnected by such a root system, thus possessing a significant competitive advantage over true seedlings and enabling the tree to dominate drier sites than the maple. Entire beech groves have grown from the roots of a single tree. 

Beech becomes a large, fine-textured tree with a dense canopy and graceful, spreading form. It is highly phototropic, responding to shade patterns by learning toward the strongest light. The U.S. national champion is located in the northeastern corner of Ohio and measures 130 feet (39 m) tall with a trunk nearly 6 feet (1.8 m) thick. Equally impressive specimens might be found in Canada, considering the large Canadian range of the species. 

LEAVES: Bright new beech leaves emerging from the long-pointed buds, seen against the background of smooth gray bark, are a sight not soon forgotten. The leaves expand to 5 inches (13.5 cm) in length and remain attractive throughout the growing season. In fall they turn yellow, then golden bronze. Beeches are marcescent, as are a number of the closely related oaks (Quercus), with many leaves clinging each winter, bleaching in the sun, and rattling in the cold wind.

FLOWERS AND FRUIT: Staminate flower hand from long stalks in marble-sized round clusters, while pistillate flowers are arranged in pairs on shorter stalks at the ends of branches. They develop into triangular beechnuts paired in heart-shaped burs, which have been documented as a primary food source for more than thirty wildlife species, such as wild turkeys and squirrels. When in season, beechnuts can make up 50 percent of the food of black bears.

In an earlier time in North America, beechnuts were relied upon almost exclusively each fall by huge flocks of passenger pigeons, which became extinct when the last one died around 1914. These enormous feeding flocks have been described as one of the most impressive sights in nature, akin to an approaching storm. Because of their senseless destruction by humans, we can never see them again.

BEST SEASONS: EARLY SPRING (when the long sharp buds expand the fresh new leaves emerge, a spectacular green, after a long hard winter). WINTER (for the silvery smooth bark and intricate twig structure, most visible in the dormant season, accented by marcescent leaves). FALL (the yellow fall foliage color is modest when compared with adjacent maples and certain oaks, but the combination of leaves and bark is quietly elegant). SUMMER (a stately tree that casts a cool but luminous shade).

Beech Tree - North American Trees

NATIVE AND ADAPTIVE RANGE: Beech can be found in rich, mesic forests from Sudbury, Ontario, Cape Breton Island, and Quebec City down throughout the eastern United States to northern Florida and eastern Texas. As with many other trees with such a broad range, local seed sources usually product the trees best adapted to local conditions. Northern beech ecotypes can be grown north to USDA zone 3.

CULTURE: This tree should be preserved in natural forest settings or planted in mesic sites where it can be left alone. It has an undeserved reputation as being difficult to transplant, probably because many people have tried to collect wild “seedlings” that were actually root suckers, or because it will not survive if planted too deeply. I have moved wild trees of seedling origin, and even a few small root sprouts, with no problem. Nursery-grown specimens can be transplanted in large sizes, and beech can be grown easily from seed (which must be protected from rodents and birds throughout the first growing season) or by rooting layers from low branches. 

PROBLEMS: The most immediate concern with beech is a serious bark-fungus disease, Nectria coccinea var. faginata. The fungus seems to be fatal most often when it invades susceptible trees following attacks by another pest, the beech scale insect (Cryptococcus fagisuga), which was introduced into Nova Scotia from Europe around 1890. Researchers hope that the disease will run its course and that the most resistant trees will survive to contribute their genes to future beech forests. Another common pest peculiar to beech is the woolly beech aphid (Phyllaphis fagi). This insect does not kill the tree but liters the ground (or patio) below with a sticky honeydew. 

Beech is also intolerant of severe drought, soil compaction, and poor soil drainage. Newly planted trees (or those recently exposed by adjacent clearing) are prone to sunscald damage. Beech trees in the forest are killed easily by fires, and damaged trees are very prone to decay. 

Shallow surface roots make it difficult to establish and maintain turf under beech; turf competition and mower-inflicted injury can, in turn, have adverse effects on the vigor of the tree. The best solution, for your mower and your beech tree, is to accumulate a natural duff or mulch under the canopy and allow the lower limbs to sweep the ground or encourage native wild-flowers to fill in beneath. 

Culture

CULTIVARS: The European beech (Fagus sylvatica) has given rise to more horticultural selections than almost any other forest tree, but not so with our native species. Two beech selections from Indiana, ‘Abrams’ and ‘Abundance’ were made in 1926 for nut quality, and another, ‘Jenner’, was added more recently from New York. 

There are natural geographic races, known locally as red beech, gray beech, and white beech, and some authorities recognize a variety or two. We have not yet seen the dawn of cultivar development in native beech. Perhaps this is because any seedling beech can always be counted upon to produce a tree of consistently high ornamental value, or perhaps it is because our native species is more demanding of its site than most trees, including even its European cousin. It could simply be that the European beech was tinkered with for centuries before out native tree was discovered, and not need has been perceived for more beech cultivars. 

SIMILAR AND RELATED SPECIES: There are about ten species of beech worldwide, all in the Northern Hemisphere. Perhaps four species (our native tree and the common European species in all its forms and cultivars, plus the Asian Fagus crenata and F.orientalis) are hardy in much of eastern North America. Of these, the most commonly seen by far is European beech. Fagus sylvatica is slightly more drought tolerant than F. grandifolia, while our native species is more cold hardy and could be viewed by some as having smoother, more attractive bark. Fagus X moesiaca, a natural hybrid of European and Asian species, is also seen occasionally. All these species can become very confusing as one begins to compare the countless cultivars of F. sylvatica. The small-leaved beech trees of the Southern Hemisphere actually belong to Nothofagus, a related genus, and some are cultivated in mild areas of North America. 

COMMENTS: Two of the more interesting organisms associated with beech are the early hairstreak, a small, quick, brown-over-blue butterfly, and beechdrops (Epifagus argumana), a parasitic plant that grows beneath beech canopies. Beech bark, especially where it is naturally sculpted around unions where low limbs join the stem, is a tactile as well as visual masterpiece that should be part of all sightless interpretive trails. Old trees beneath a gray winter sky seem cast from molten pewter. 

Beech bark has been used as writing paper for centuries. The work “brook” comes from the Anglo-Saxon boc (“letter”), which derives from beece (“beech”). Everyone interested in woods lore has probably heard about “D. Boone cilled a bar” being carved on the smooth bark of beech trees wherever the famous explorer had a successful bear hunt. The trunk of the last of Daniel Boone’s defiled beeches can still be seen in a museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Unfortunately, this least admirable trait of Boone’s seems to be the one people most imitate, and it is increasingly difficult to find elegant old beech trees with smooth, lichen-mottled bark not disfigured by some thoughtless person’s knife.

Cultivars

Beech cannot be grown outside its undisturbed natural habitat without careful attention to its precise requirements, but it is a prize well worth the cost for those who want to grow or preserve one of the world’s most beautiful trees. It can also serve as the “canary in the coal mine” for those who hope to build their houses in the forest without damaging the surrounding trees. When the beech wooded lot starts to die, you will know that your construction activity was not as benign as you had hoped, and that your other tree may die as well. 

This species is projected by many scientists to be a significant future victim of environmental degradation in the United States, based upon current predictions of global warming and measurements of acid precipitation (the unnatural aluminum concentrations in soils affected by acid rain inhibit calcium uptake in beech). While global warming may not kill trees in managed landscape settings or in the coolest forest ravines, the warming, drying effect of greenhouse gases produced in abnormal concentrations may eliminate most beeches in many of our forests over the next century. We should all work together to minimize such trends wherever possible_ for the noble beech and for our own species as well. 

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