Tree of the month: July 2024 - Beech

The Beech, the third most common tree of British woodlands, grows to over 40 metres and can live well over 300 years, or up to 500 years if pollarded. It is truly native in South East England and South Wales, colonising as the ice retreated after the last ice age. It has naturalised and been planted elsewhere in the UK. Mature beech woods can form a cathedral-like high-arched canopy. Beech are shallow-rooted and many old trees were lost during the hurricane of 1987.

Some Parkwood Springs Beeches are multistemmed and may be survivors of older trees which were cut for firewood by impoverished local people during the 1930’s Depression. Beech is a favourite decorative hedge having beautiful foliage and leaves that linger on well into winter. These act as shelter for birds and small mammals.

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​The distinctive hairy edge to the leaves is more noticeable when young. Lime-green in colour, the glossy leaves darken as the season progresses. They are so densely arranged that by early summer little light and rain penetrates. Few plants are able to thrive under the summer canopy. The autumn display of gold, copper and bronze, however, is stunning.

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​The Wildlife value of Beech: Beech woods are valuable habitats for flowers like Wood Anemones and Bluebells that flower early in spring before the dense canopy of leaves reduces the light. Fungi like Cep, Lion’s Mane, Death Cap, the Earthstar and our native Truffle also grow in the dead organic matter in the soils under Beech trees, where the rich network of ectomycorrhizal fungi beneath the ground help the host trees gain nutrients in exchange for sugars. The smooth, grey bark of younger Beech trees becomes gnarled and split as the tree ages, providing habitats for many mosses and lichens as well as nesting and sheltering sites for bats, rodents and holenesting birds like the Nuthatch and Woodpecker.

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​The foliage is a food-plant for several insects including the caterpillars of the Barred Hook-tip, Clay Triple-lines and the Buff-tip Moth, whose adult is beautifully camouflaged. The larvae of the Small Beech Pygmy moth feeds only on Beech.

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​Beech Mast (beech nuts), small triangular nuts, provide highly nutritious food for wood-mice, squirrels, voles, jays, nuthatches and finches, including Siskin and Brambling.

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​Every few years, as with Oaks, a heavy crop is produced. These are known as ‘mast years’ and provide a glut of food and many surplus seeds for germination. Research shows that Beech seedlings will grow well in the shade of the trees and are favoured by the parent trees, surviving better than other seeds on the woodland floor.

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​The Human Uses of Beech: Beech timber, fine-grained and largely knot-free bends easily and turns well, These qualities mean it has long ben used for furniture. The original ‘Bodgers’ were skilled green-woodworkers in the Chilterns who worked on pole-lathes in the woodland, often making chairs and other everyday furniture. Beech seasons quickly and has a shock-resistant, durable quality which led to it being used for rifle-butts, shoe-heels, hammer and mallet handles and hockey-sticks. Beech also burns well, and is used for firewood and smoking food.

The leaves were used as a poultice to relieve swelling and the forked twigs valued for divining. The nuts can be toxic in large quantities but fine in small quantities, though small and fiddly to access.

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​Beech Myths and Symbolism: The Beech has long been regarded as the ‘Queen of the woods,’ with Oak as king. A piece of Beech carried with you would act as a good-luck charm while washing in the water caught in the hollows of an old Beech would wash away your cares. Druids believed carving symbols and runes in the smooth, grey trunks gave you magic powers. The ease of carving into the bark has made that activity a long and still practiced activity for lovers and sweethearts, but it’s not to be encouraged as it can weaken the tree.

The Anglo-Saxon word, ‘Boc’, for Beech, similar to ‘Buche’ in German, became the word ‘book’ in English - thin slices of the wood were used for writing on in the past.

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​The way Beech roots are often exposed led to an association with snakes, referenced by Tennyson in a poem in which he writes of the “serpent-rooted Beech trees”.

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​The Beech Tree in poetry: Several poems that refer to Beech reference some of the qualities described above. The first reminds me of the wonderful word for the smell of earth and leaves after rain- ‘petrichor’.
‘A Prospect of BeechTrees' by Stephen Boyce:
“Sometimes a tree becomes a stoup, a font the threshold of winter, its gnarled joints
offering the blessing of damp beechmast,
leaf and twig and husk,
And lingering there the sweet musk of decades of mulch trampled by the feet of drovers, huggers, lovers
and some who found respite in shade,
took shelter from a squall….”

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​Robert Frost: Extract from ‘A Boundless Moment”
“We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one of his own pretense [sic] deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last years leaves”

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​In 1597 John Gerard, the
English priest and herbalist
writes of the mast: with these
mice and Squirrels are much
delighted, who do mightily
increase by feeding theron;
Swine also be fattened
therewith, and certain other
beasts, also Deere do feed
thereon very greedily: they be
likewise pleasant to Thrushes.

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​Edith Nesbit (Writer of children’s books.)
From her poem The Beech Tree:
My beautiful beech, your smooth grey coat is trimmed
With letters. Once each stood for all things dear
To foolish lovers, dead this many a year…
My beautiful beech, I came upon you here
The master-letter which begins her name
Through whom, to me the royal summer came,
And nightingale and rose, and all things dear”.