Fagus, Linn. The Beech. The Latin name of the genus (Fagus) supposed to be an equivalent of the Greek phegos, an oak, or it may be derived from phago, to eat; the nuts of this tree having been used as food by man in all ages and countries where it is a native. The modern English name, beech, was probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon bece or boc; in Dutch it is beuk; French, hetre; Icelandic, beyk; Danish, bog; Swedish, bok; German, buche or buoche; Russian, buk; Italian, faggio; Armenian, fao; and in Welsh ffawydd.
The beech belongs to the order Cupuliferæ, or oak family. The genus contains about fifteen species of handsome deciduous and evergreen trees, or shrubs, very widely distributed throughout the temperate and colder regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres. Male flowers are bell-shaped, in long-stalked drooping heads; calyx five to seven cleft, containing numerous stamens. Female flowers two to four in a cluster on the summit of the scaly-bracted peduncle; the inside scales uniting, forming a four-lobed involucre of imbricated bracts, the whole becoming at maturity a somewhat prickly, scaly bur, within which are found a pair of sharp-edged triangular nuts, containing a tender and sweet-flavored kernel.
History of the Beech.—The common beeches of both Europe and North America are so closely related that the two species may be considered as one for all practical purposes, such as propagation, cultivation, and value of the wood and nuts. It is true, however, that our native beech is not environed with ancient myths and stories of love and war, neither is it celebrated in poetry and song, yet it has, doubtless, played just as noble a part in human affairs among the pre-historic races of America as those recorded of its European contemporary. As the beech in Europe is found in the forests of Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, and southward to Constantinople, Palestine, Asia Minor and Armenia, it was well known and highly appreciated by all the early inhabitants of these countries, and is frequently referred to by the earlier writers of Greece and Rome who touch upon the rural affairs of their times. It is supposed that Theophrastus refers to the beech under the name of Oxua, and Dioscorides as Phegos, and the latter author places it among the oaks, in which he was not far out of the way, because the beech is a member of the oak family in our modern classification. Virgil and Pliny speak highly of the little triangular nuts, and the people of their times set considerable value upon beech-nuts as an article of food. Pliny also assures us that at the siege of Chios, the besieged inhabitants lived for some time entirely on these nuts. We are inclined to think, however, that both Virgil and Pliny are in error when they tell us that the beech was propagated by being grafted on the chestnut. They were probably led astray in this by some romancing gardener of their time, for we even have some of the same ilk with us at this day. Pliny refers to the beech several times in his writings, and places a much higher value upon this nut than he does upon the chestnut; in fact, speaks rather contemptuously of the latter, and seems to be surprised that nature should have taken such care of the nuts, which he calls "vilissima," as to enclose them with a prickly involucre or bur.
But my limited space will not allow of tracing the history of the beech from ancient to modern times, although it has always been esteemed as food for man, as well as for wild and domesticated animals. Swine fattened on beech and oak mast have for ages been noted for their excellent flesh, and the value of many an old estate in Great Britain was determined more upon the mast the forest produced, than the area or number of square miles they contained.
As a monumental tree the beech has no rival, for its smooth gray bark, perennial and almost unchangeable, has ever been a convenient place to register challenges to enemies, epitaphs, epithets, and probably more frequently than all, the initials of the name of some loved one, who might possibly pass that way and find her name engraved on the beechen tree. I doubt much if there is a beech grove in all Europe or in America, within a convenient distance of a city, country village or schoolhouse, on which the bark of the trees is not scarified by the knives of boys in recording the initials of their own names, and those of their favorites of the opposite sex. These living registers were long ago recognized by the poets, and more than eighteen centuries ago Virgil admits it in these lines:
"Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat,
Which on the beech's bark I lately writ."
In more modern times Tasso hints of the same habit, in Jerusalem Delivered, to wit:
"On the smooth beechen rind, the pensive dame
Carves in a thousand forms her Tancred's name."
That the Spanish youths were not oblivious to their opportunities for recording the names of their favorites we must assume to be true, from the lines of Don Luis de Gongora, who tells us that: