Everything about Fagus Grandifolia totally explained
The
American Beech Fagus grandifolia is a species of
beech native to eastern
North America, from
Nova Scotia west to southern
Ontario in southeastern
Canada, west to
Wisconsin and south to eastern
Texas and northern
Florida in the
United States. Trees in the southern half of the range are sometimes distinguished as a variety,
F. grandifolia var.
caroliniana, but this isn't considered distinct in the Flora of North America. A related beech native to the mountains of central
Mexico is sometimes treated as a subspecies of American Beech, but more often as a distinct species,
Mexican Beech Fagus mexicana.
|
|-
|
|-
|
It is a
deciduous tree growing to 20-35 m tall, with smooth, silvery-gray
bark. The
leaves are dark green, simple and sparsely-toothed with small teeth, 6-12 cm long (rarely 15 cm), with a short petiole. The winter twigs are distinctive among North American trees, being long and slender (15-20 mm by 2-3 mm) with two rows of overlapping scales on the buds. The tree is
monoecious, with flowers of both sexes on the same tree. The
fruit is a small, sharply-angled
nut, borne in pairs in a soft-spined, four-lobed husk.
The American Beech is a shade-tolerant species, favoring the shade more than other trees, commonly found in forests in the final stage of
succession. Although sometimes found in pure stands, it's more often associated with
Sugar Maple,
Yellow Birch, and
Eastern Hemlock, typically on moist well drained slopes and rich bottomlands. Near its southern limit, it often shares canopy dominance with
Southern Magnolia.
Beech Bark Disease has become a major killer of Beeches in the Northeastern United States.
Uses
American Beech is an important tree in
forestry. The wood is heavy, hard, tough and strong, and, until the advent of the modern
chainsaw, during lumbering beech trees were often left uncut. As a result, many areas today still have extensive groves of old beeches that wouldn't naturally occur. Today, the wood is harvested for uses such as flooring, containers, furniture, handles and woodenware.
It is sometimes planted as an ornamental tree, but (even within its native area) much less often than the
European Beech; the latter species is faster-growing and somewhat more tolerant of difficult
urban sites.
Like the European Beech bark, the American Beech bark is an attraction for vandals who carve names, dates, and other material into it. One such tree in
Louisville, Kentucky, in what is now the southern part of Iroquois Park, bore the legend "
D. Boone kilt a
bar" and the year in the late 1700s. This carving was authenticated as early as the mid-1800s, and the tree trunk section is now in the possession of
The Filson Historical Society in Louisville.
The American Beech also provides food for numerous species of animals. Among
vertebrates alone, these include ruffed grouse, wild turkeys, raccoons, red/gray foxes, white tail deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, pheasants, black bears, and porcupines. For
lepidopteran
caterpillars feeding on American Beech, see
List of Lepidoptera that feed on beeches.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Fagus Grandifolia'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://american_beech.totallyexplained.com">American Beech Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
