American Beech

A few posts back, I promised to write about the American beech, or Fagus grandifolia, at Dumbarton Oaks.  To be sure, if you have been to Dumbarton Oaks, you know precisely which tree I'm talking about.  Even people who wouldn't be able to identify this tree as American beech would remember this particular specimen, as striking as it is.

 

Beeches are extremely slow growing (and Fagus grandifolia is more slow growing than its relative, the European beech, or Fagus sylvatica). In Central Park, specimens of European beech abound, but it's hard to find an American beech like this.  Low-branching and with shallow roots resting on the ground, this is an ideal specimen for introducing the plant to students. 

It's easy to identify a beech by its smooth (elephant skin-like) bark, which is often covered with graffiti.  In fact, a part of beech trunk, with the words "D. Boon Killd Bar o this tree 1775" inscribed on it, is on display at the Grandfather Mountain Nature Museum, though it's been proven that Daniel Boone himself was not the graffiti artist.

Of course, in the Virginia-Maryland-DC area, American beeches are downright ubiquitous.  I encountered the one above while running on the C&O Canal in Georgetown.  In its native forest habitat, beeches tend to sucker and so you will also find communities of beeches. I've been on old tracts of land where the only tree around is the beech.  That's the result of this suckering tendency and because it has very hard wood  (which consequently protected it from harvest until the chainsaw was invented).

The fall color is...okay.  It has a rusty golden-orange color which is just fine.  The leaves are ovate and the presence of very small spines along the margin help distinguish it from Fagus sylvatica, which has an entire margin.

Beeches produce nuts that provide food for dozens of birds and forest mammals.  The seedcaps are fuzzy, four-winged capsules which are persistent on the tree through early winter or spring.  The plant also provides habitat for many caterpillars.  The wood is used for furniture, flooring and woodenware.

Though the bark alone makes beeches easy to identify, the buds are also very distinctive.  Long and slender, they have always reminded me of a spindle on a spinning wheel.  I'm guessing, more specifically, in some deep recess of my memory, they remind me of the cursed spindle that Sleeping Beauty is fated to touch. I looked up a clip online and am pretty sure that's where my association comes from.  Since it's Friday, and who doesn't like a bit of Tchaikovsky and Disney, see for yourself here.