Beech (genus Fagus) is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted species in two distinct subgenera, Englerianae and Fagus. The subgenus Englerianae is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark. The better known species of subgenus Fagus are native to Europe, western and eastern Asia and eastern North America.
The European beech Fagus sylvatica is the most commonly cultivated species, with several ornamental varieties, and forest trees yielding a timber used for furniture, flooring and construction, plywood, and household items. The timber can be used to build homes. Beechwood makes excellent firewood. Slats of washed beech wood are spread around the bottom of fermentation tanks for some beers. Beech logs are burned to dry the malt used in some German smoked beers. Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham, andouille sausage, and some cheeses.
Description
Beeches are monoecious, bearing both male and female flowers on the same plant. The small flowers are unisexual, the female flowers borne in pairs, the male flowers wind-pollinating catkins. The fruit is a three-angled nut, with two in a spiny dehiscent cupule. The bark is smooth. The leaves have a central vein with side-veins parallel to each other and ending in a tooth on the thin leaf-blade. The tree is deciduous, dropping its leaves in autumn.
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File:367 Fagus silvatica.jpg|Botanical illustration
File:Fagus sylvatica leaf 001.jpg|Leaf of Fagus sylvatica
File:Beech flowers.jpg|F. sylvatica flowers
File:Beechnuts during autumn.jpg|Beechnuts in autumn
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Evolution
Evolutionary history
thumb|Fagus sylvatica pliocenica, [[Piacenzian, 3.6 to 2.6 mya ]]
Numerous species have been named globally from the fossil record spanning from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene. Some fossil species formerly placed in Fagus have been moved to other genera, namely Alnus, Castanea, Fagopsis, Fagoxylon, Fagus-pollenites, Juglans, Nothofagaphyllites, Nothofagus, and Trigonobalanus. which includes oaks and chestnuts. The oldest fossils that can be assigned to the beech lineage are 81–82 million years old pollen from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming, United States.) and quickly radiated across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with a first diversity peak in the Miocene of northeastern Asia. The contemporary species are the product of past, repeated reticulate evolutionary processes (outbreeding, introgression, hybridization).
Taxonomy
The most recent classification system of the genus recognizes 14 species in two distinct subgenera, subgenus Englerianae and Fagus. Further differentiating characteristics include the whitish bloom on the underside of the leaves, the visible tertiary leaf veins, and a long, smooth cupule-peduncle. Originally proposed but not formalized by botanist Chung-Fu Shen in 1992, this group comprised two Japanese species, F. japonica and F. okamotoi, and one Chinese species, F. engleriana. While the status of F. okamotoi remains uncertain, the most recent systematic treatment based on morphological and genetic data confirmed a third species, F. multinervis, endemic to Ulleungdo, a South Korean island in the Sea of Japan. or as a variety of F. japonica. The differ from their siblings by their unique nuclear and plastid genotypes.
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|Fagus caspica – Caspian beech
|Fagus
|New species described in 2024;
|Yes
|-
|120px||Fagus crenata – Siebold's beech or Japanese beech
|Fagus
|Widespread species; complex history connecting it to both the Western Eurasian group and the other East Asian species of subgenus Fagus Its genetic heterogeneity may be indicative for ongoing speciation processes.
|Northeastern Anatolia (Pontic Mountains, Kaçkar Mountains) and Caucasus region (Lesser and Greater Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, Ciscaucasia; down to sea-level in southwestern Georgia)
|Yes
|-
|80px||Fagus japonica File:Fagus mexicana, Zacualtipán de Ángeles, Hidalgo, Mexico 5737290.jpg
|Englerianae
|Widespread species; insular sister species of F. engleriana
|Replaced by F. sinensis
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|120px||Fagus lucida
|Fagus
|Rare species; closest relatives are F. crenata
|Yes
|-
|120px
|Fagus mexicana
|Fagus
|Narrow endemic sister species of F. grandifolia. F. mexicana differs from F. grandifolia by its slender leaves and less-evolved but more polymorphic set of alleles (higher level of heterozygosity))
|Yes
|-
| ||Fagus sinensis
|Fagus
|Invalid; the original material included material from two much different species: F. engleriana and F. longipetiolata They may represent a lowland ecotype of F. sylvatica.
|Southeastern Balkans
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|Fagus okamotoi
|F. crenata × F. japonica ?
|Unique phenotype, described from an area in which F. crenata and F. japonica are sympatric. So far, there is no genetic evidence for ongoing gene flow between the two Japanese species, which belong to different subgeneric lineages.
|Kanto, eastern Honshu-->
|-
|Fagus × taurica – Crimean beech|| F. sylvatica × F. orientalis s.l.
|Hybrid status not yet tested by genetic data; according to isoenzyme profiles a less-evolved, relict population of F. sylvatica or intermediate between F. sylvatica and the species complex historically addressed as Oriental beech (F. orientalis in a broad sense)
The common name of "beech" is from the Anglo-Saxon boc, bece or beoce, the German buche, the Swedish box - all meaning "book" as well as beech and derived from the Sanskrit
boko or letter and bokos or writings. This connection to "beech" seems to have derived from the fact that the old Runic tablets were of beech wood.
Ecology
Habitat and distribution
Beech requires a deep soil with good drainage and a neutral or slightly acidic soil, pH 6 to 7.5. It is vulnerable to drought as its root system is relatively shallow. It does not live in waterlogged areas, but it can grow in windy places, shade from other trees, and cold. In northern Europe it is a lowland species, while further south it is montane, growing at an altitude of up to .
The English Lowlands beech forests is an ecoregion of high-canopy forest dominated by European beech in southeastern England, surviving as remnants such as the New Forest. The species arrived in Britain after the last glaciation, and may have been restricted to basic soils in the south of England. It could have been introduced by Neolithic tribes who planted the trees for their edible nuts. In southeast Wales, the Cwm Clydach National Nature Reserve holds beech woodlands on the western edge of their natural range in a steep limestone gorge.
The primeval beech forests of the Carpathians have been dominated since the last ice age by the beech.
In North America, beech can form Beech-maple forest, seen by some ecologists as a climax community, by partnering with the sugar maple.
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File:Beech trees in Mallard Wood, New Forest - geograph.org.uk - 779513.jpg|Lowland beech forest in the New Forest, England
File:Beech forest Mátra in winter.jpg|Montane beech forest in the Mátra mountains, Hungary
File:Beech-maple forest with details of leaves.jpg|Beech–maple forest, Ohio, United States
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Pests and diseases
The beech blight aphid, Grylloprociphilus imbricator, is a common pest of American beech trees.
Beech bark disease is a fungal infection of trees in the Eastern US, Canada, and Europe. Following damage caused by the scale insects Xylococculus betulae and Cryptococcus fagisuga, the fungi Neonectria faginata and Neonectria ditissima produce cankers each year; these may eventually girdle and kill the tree.
Beech leaf disease is a disease that affects beeches spread by the nematode Litylenchus crenatae mccannii. The disease was discovered in Ohio in 2012. It has spread through the Eastern United States and Canada.
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The bark of the beech tree showing signs of beech bark disease. (0bfa1340-c4ae-488a-bf25-0805049ea28b).JPG|Beech bark disease indicated by white wax marks caused by scale insects
File:Perithecia.jpg|Fruiting bodies of Neonectria faginata, agent of beech bark disease
File:Litylenchus crenatae 161966913.jpg|Beech leaf disease, leaf infected by Litylenchus crenatae mccannii
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Uses
Furniture and construction
The European beech Fagus sylvatica yields a tough timber. It weighs about 720 kg per cubic metre and is widely used for furniture construction, flooring, plywood, and household items. The timber can be used to build chalets, houses, and log cabins.
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File:Chair (backstool), England, c. 1675, carved and japanned beechwood, caned seat - Ham House - London, UK - DSC07896 (cropped).jpg|English carved and japanned beechwood chair, c. 1675
File:Desk chair MET 211351.jpg|French desk chair, beechwood with leather upholstery, c. 1740–50
File:Reclining Rocking Chair (Italy), ca. 1905.jpg|Italian bent beechwood rocking chair, Antonio Volpe S.A., c. 1905
File:Hans J Wegner Wishbone Chair.jpg|Hans J Wegner Wishbone Chair of turned and waxed beech, Denmark, 1949
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Ornamental tree
The European beech, Fagus sylvatica, is widely cultivated in most regions that have a suitable climate, including North and South America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Many varieties are in cultivation, including the weeping beech F. sylvatica 'Pendula', several varieties of copper or purple beech, the fern-leaved beech F. sylvatica 'Asplenifolia', and the tricolour beech F. sylvatica 'Roseomarginata'. The columnar Dawyck beech (F. sylvatica 'Dawyck') is named after Dawyck Botanic Garden in the Scottish Borders.
The tallest beech hedge in the world, and the longest hedge in Britain, is the Meikleour Beech Hedge in Perth and Kinross, Scotland.
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File:FagusPurpurea052005.jpg|F. sylvatica var Purpurea
File:Fagus sylvatica 'Asplenifolia' kz2.jpg|F. sylvatica var Asplenifolia
File:Fagus sylvatica roseo-marginata 0zz.jpg|F. sylvatica var Roseomarginata
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Food and food preparation
The fruit of the beech tree is an edible nut, known as beech mast. According to the Roman statesman Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, the fruit: "of the beech is the sweetest of all; so much so, that, according to Cornelius Alexander, the people of the city of Chios, when besieged, supported themselves wholly on mast". They can also be roasted and pulverized into a coffee substitute.
Spirals of beech wood, its flavour removed with baking soda, are spread inside fermentation tanks for beers such as Budweiser to increase the surface area of the yeast and prevent off-flavours. Beech logs are burned to dry the malt used in German smoked beers. Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham, traditional andouille (an offal sausage) from Normandy, and some smoked cheeses.
Other
thumb|upright=0.6|Painting Venus with a Mirror. Oil and plaster on beech wood. [[Titian, 1511]]
In antiquity, Indo-European people used beech bark as a writing material, especially in a religious context. Beech wood tablets were a common writing material in Germanic societies before the development of paper. The Old English bōc has the primary sense of "beech" with a secondary sense of "book".
The pigment bistre was made from beech wood soot. Beech litter raking was used as a replacement for straw in animal husbandry in Switzerland in the 17th century. Beech is one of the 38 plants whose flowers are used to prepare Bach flower remedies. Beech makes an excellent firewood.
Some drum shells are made from beech.
The textile modal is a kind of rayon often made wholly from cellulose extracted from pulped beech wood.
In Gallo-Roman religion, Fagus (Latin for "beech") was a god known from four inscriptions found in the Hautes-Pyrénées.
See also
- Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe
- English Lowlands beech forests
- Weeping Beech (Queens)
References
External links
- Traditional and Modern Use of Beech