horticulture

The beech is one of the eastern forest's most distinctive trees. Slow growing, this tree has a light gray bark that is smooth and featureless on trees of all sizes. The beech casts some of the darkest shade in the forest, and very few other trees grow under it, so beech groves are usually open and free of underbrush or ground cover, except for a distinctive saprophyte that preys on this tree's roots.
This tree requires ample moisture, and rich, dark soil. Often it will invade oak forests, and it is often found with white oak, maples, tuliptree and white ash in the middle part of its range, while in the southern mountains it will mix with magnolias, basswood, and hemlock. In the northern forests, it grows along with hemlock, pines, maples, and birch, and in some of the mountains of Vermont, it grows in huge monocultural stands as a stunted ridgetop tree, very different than the streamside giant pictured here.
The beech tree is most easily identified by its bark. The bark is light colored, and very smooth, as this tree never develops furrows. The leaves are fairly small, toothed, with veins terminating in teeth. There are no lobes on the leaves, which turn yellow in the fall. The nuts, which fall before the leaves turn, are small, triangular shaped, and edible. The flowers are wind pollinated.
Description
leaves 3-5 inches, serrated, unlobed
fruit nuts. grow in two's, triangular shaped
Bark very light gray, smooth even on large trees
Flowers wind pollinated