Beech forest

“ The beech tree is indeed the aristocrat of the forest, for it is superb at the fall. No leaves possess such a rich colour or have the appearance of majesty and preserved form. The elm leaves are drab and lifeless, the oak leaves blotched and frayed; from the horse chestnut the big green splayed leaves are either withered and rusted or drop when seemingly full of sap. The elderberry and the ash loosen their sprays at the first singe of autumn’s fire. ”

“ The branches of the Beech are fantastically wreathed and disproportioned, twining awkwardly among one another, and running often into long unvaried lines, without any of that strength and firmness which we admire in the oak, or of that easy simplicity which pleases in the ash: in short, we rarely see a Beech well ramified. In full leaf, it is unequally pleasing; it has the appearance of an overgrown bush. Virgil, indeed, was right in choosing the Beech for its shade. No tree forms so complete a roof. ”

“ The delicate foliage of the beech and poplar, the deep sombre green of the hemlock and fir, the pale, graceful willow, and the bright emerald maple, all blended to form a perfect forest robe, as yet untouched by the devastating hand of man. Bald peaks lent wildness to the scene, already diversified by the commanding banks of the rivers which lay calmly mirrored in their deep, clear waters. ”

“ Beech is one of the truly beautiful trees of the forest. In the eyes of many, the beech is as much to be admired as the American elm or sugar maple. Certainly in spring when it is covered with its staminate blossoms, it is a splendid sight, and its perfect leaves are seldom spotted or eaten by insects. In winter, it is particularly interesting. Its beautiful bark then appears very bright. ”

“ By and by patches of blue shone between the boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here, although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern. The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. ”

“ On the contrary, the beechen woods often remain untouched, while others fall around them—partly because these trees are not usually the indices of the richest soil, but more from the fact that clearing a piece of beech forest is no easy matter. The green logs do not burn so readily as those of the oak, the elm, the maple, or poplar, and hence the necessity of “rolling” them off the ground to be cleared—a serious thing where labour is scarce and dear. ”

“ To these add bright sunlight and leaf shadow, the sudden lowering of tint as a cloud passes, the different aspects of the day and the evening, and the changes of rain and dry weather. You may look at the bark of a beech twenty times and always find it different. After crossing Virgil's Bridge in the deep coombe at the bottom of Marden Hill these great beeches begin, true woodland trees, and somehow more forest-like than the hundreds and hundreds of acres of fir trees that are called forest. There is another spirit among the beech trees; they look like deer and memories of old English life. ”

“ The fact is the durmast, being the more vigorous tree, is able to thrive in a soil too dry and poor to support the pedunculate oak.
One word of counsel to planters on soil tending to dryness—never plant oak forest pure, but let beech be mixed with the oaks. The importance of this is well known to German foresters, who call beech the doctor of the forest. Its dense foliage prevents undue evaporation under parching winds and scorching sun, and its heavy leaf-fall in autumn creates the best kind of forest soil. ”

“ May 28th.—The most extraordinary blight is now upon the trees that I believe ever was known: it is confined entirely to the oak, and chiefly to the large trees, although in some parts it is extending to the young plantations. The whole of the High Meadow woods and great part of the Forest, particularly Russell’s Enclosure, and where the timber is thick, are entirely stripped of their leaves, and look as if fire had passed through them. Where a beech stands amongst them, it is perfectly green, and the oaks all around quite brown. ”

“ In spring the beech is the most beautiful of forest trees, putting forth individual horizontal sprays of tender green from the lower branches about the end of April as heralds of the later full glory of the tree. These increase day by day upwards in verdant clouds, until the whole unites into a complete bower of dense greenery. ”

“ The removal of leaves is injurious to the forest, not only because it retards the growth of trees, but still more because it disqualifies the soil for the production of particular species. When the beech languishes, and the development of its branches is less vigorous and its crown less spreading, it becomes unable to resist the encroachments of the fir. This latter tree thrives in an inferior soil, and being no longer stifled by the thick foliage of the beech, it spreads gradually through the wood, while the beech retreats before it and finally perishes. ”

“ Nowhere in England rise such oak-woods, their boughs rimed with the frostwork of lichens, and dark beech-groves with their floor of red brown leaves, on which the branches weave their own warp and woof of light and shade. ”

“ The oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but the beech is the poets’ tree, the lovers’ tree. Have you not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, by making them the depositors of the names of their beloved ones? ”

“ If we would really appreciate the beauty of this tree, we should walk in a wood of them. In its juvenility, contrary to the generality of trees, the Beech is decidedly the most pleasing, not having acquired that heaviness which Gilpin so loudly complains of. A light, airy young Beech, with its spiry branches hanging in easy forms, is generally beautiful. And, occasionally, the forest Beech, in a dry hungry soil, preserves the lightness of youth in the maturity of age. ”

“ Again, while the luxuriant forest of the tropics includes many different species of trees, the deciduous forests of cool temperate regions contain few species, and are often pure woods, that is, consist of one dominant species, forming beech woods or oak woods, and so on. The dense shade of the beech makes undergrowth difficult or impossible, but the other woods have a complicated undergrowth of many different kinds of plants, especially pronounced in spring before [132] the leaves appear on the trees. ”

“ Lastly, from its very nature, the New Forest is ever beautiful, at every season of the year, even in the depth of winter. The colouring of summer is not more rich. Then the great masses of holly glisten with their brightest green; the purple light gathers round the bare oaks, and the yews stand out in their shrouds of black. Then the first budding branch of furze sparkles with gold, and the distant hill-side glows with the red layers of beech-leaves. And if a snow-storm passes up from the sea, then every bough is suddenly covered with a silver filigree of whitest moss. ”

“ It is quite amusing to see the little fellows repeat their visits to their underground habitations, or leap from branch to branch, with their cheeks stuffed nearly to bursting with the precious Beech-nut. The Beech does not dispense its fruit until after severe frosts occur, when the burr either opens or drops from the limb where it grew; in the former case, after a smart frost at night, the early morning breeze shakes them from their elevated position, when they come rattling down upon the dry leaves like showers of hail. ”

“ As the trees are mostly beeches—miles upon miles of great trees, many of them hollow-trunked from age and decay—the fallen leaves are an important element in the forest scenery. They lie half a yard to a yard deep in all the deep hollows and dells and old water-worn channels, and where the ground is sheltered they cover acres of ground—millions and myriads of dead, fallen beech leaves. These, too, always seem to be alive. ”

“ On the same side stretches a forest of beech trees, and in front are three or four great white roads, which cross fields of wheat, barley and hay, and hop plantations; no sight could be pleasanter, or richer, especially when the breeze falls upon it and these harvests rise and fall in the sunlight like waves of the sea. ”

“ The beech is distinguished for three qualities beyond every other native of British woodland. First, by its abundant leaf-fall it promotes the formation of forest humus—the rich vegetable soil so essential to vigorous tree growth—more speedily and effectively than any other tree. Secondly, it bears shade better than any other broad-leaved tree; indeed, the only trees of any kind that approach it in this respect are the hornbeam and the silver fir. These two qualities make the beech best of all trees for under-planting ”

“ The timber of our beech, while green, is by far the hardest of our large growing trees, and, in the American forest, the members of the beechen family match better than those of any other, with the perseverance of the ruthless Yankee; the roots retaining the hardness deeper in the earth than those of any other tree, and being so plaited and netted throughout the ground for a considerable space around the bulb, that it is next to impossible to trench or dig over the soil till they have decayed. ”

“ Pursuing our course from north to south, we find the beech giving place in lower latitudes to varieties of oak; and it is one of the effects of this movement that other oaks appear at first in scattered colonies, as does also the chestnut, which, aside from its requirements as to the composition of the soil, seems to find, especially in southern Europe, the conditions normal to its forest development. ”

“ There is a glorious avenue of beech-trees five miles long; and in the spring season the hawthorn-trees, of immense age, with heads that often compete in size and shape with the ordinary forest trees, and each standing bravely by itself, are a marvel of fragrant bloom. Amongst the groves of oak, beech, and chestnut, and undergrowth of bracken, fern, bush, and briar, there are hundreds of fallow deer ”

“ Some of the finest oppositions of tint which, perhaps, the forest can furnish, arise from the union of oak and Beech. We often see a wonderful effect from this combination; and yet, accommodating as its [059] leaf is in landscape, on handling, it feels as if it were fabricated with metallic rigour.
Specific character. F. sylvática. Common Beech. Leaves ovate, indistinctly serrate, smooth, ciliate. A large tree, varying from 60 to 100 feet in height, with smooth bark and spreading branches. Flowers in April and May; grows in woods, particularly on calcareous soils. ”

“ Perhaps the finest examples of beech growth in the United States occur in the higher altitudes of the lower Appalachian range in eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina, where trees are frequently encountered, showing a bole of perfectly symmetrical form, of from three to more than four feet in diameter, and of a sheer height of seventy feet before a limb is encountered. The wood which grows in this section is nearly as hard as that of the North, but that growing on lower levels in the South is of a much softer texture and lighter color, the heart being pinkish rather than reddish-brown. ”

“ Estates where extensive beech woods existed have been bought by speculative timber dealers, who shortly installed a gang of wood cutters and a steam saw, on which the timber was sawn into suitable pieces, to be afterwards turned on a lathe into chair legs and other domestic furniture, and very often finally dyed to represent mahogany. There are beeches in the New Forest which vie with the oak for premier place, measuring over 20 feet in circumference, and the mast together with the acorns affords abundant harvest, or "ovest," as it is called, for the commoners' pigs. ”

“ The observation that in beech forest the young crop needed protection and succeeded better when gradually freed from the shade of the seed trees, especially on south and west aspects where drought, frost and weeds are apt to injure it on sudden exposure, led to the elaboration of the principle of successive fellings. ”

“ The shade of the beech is so dense that grass will not grow beneath it; it gradually kills even holly, which is comparatively flourishing under the oak. The beech woods in the Forest are thus quite free from undergrowth, and the noble trees with their smooth ash-coloured stems can be seen in perfection, giving a cathedral aisle effect, which is erroneously said to have suggested the massive columns and groined roofs of Gothic architecture. ”

“ There are few trees which will not harmonize with trees of another kind; though it may be that contrasts the most simple and beautiful are produced by the various modes of growth in the same species. Two or three oaks, intermingling their branches together, have often a very pleasing effect. The beech, when fully grown, is commonly (in a luxuriant soil at least) , so heavy, that it seldom blends happily, either with its own kind or any other. The silver fir, too, is a very unaccommodating tree, as also all the other firs, and indeed every kind of tree that tapers to a point. ”