Beech – Fagus sylvatica
I love beech trees… I shouldn’t have favourites, but this is definitely in my top 5! From the elegant, sweeping limbs to the perfection of its canopy in spring, summer and autumn. From the beautiful catkins to its knobbly beech mast and long, delicate leaf buds. Not to mention that its trunk looks like an elephant’s foot (and who doesn’t love an elephant) this is a species that has me captivated year-round.
Did you know that copper beech is something which happens spontaneously, and can either be on one or two branches, or the whole tree. The genes are there in all beeches and sometimes just get switched on. It’s not something we breed in, it just happens naturally.
A year in which the tree produces vast quantities of seeds is known as a mast year. Weirdly, this can be seen to be coordinated across ‘all of northern and western Europe’ (including the UK) and no-one really knows how this happens (read more on the Woodland Trust’s page: ‘What is a mast year? How and why it happens’). I just love that there are still some natural mysteries, it makes nature seem even more magical!
There are many connections between people and Beech trees – the mast has been used for pannage for domesticated livestock (particularly pigs) and the seeds can be ground and used to make an alternative to coffee. The wood is used in a range of different ways from furniture to wooden spoons.
One of my favourite facts is that this is a species which (especially in hedges) may hang onto its dead leaves in winter. This phenomenon, known as marcescence, occurs in a few of our native species such as hornbeam and oak. Again, this is not fully understood, but there are a number of theories that have been put forward, as summarised on the Wikipedia page on marcescence.