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The wood is hard, strong, and very close-grained and is used for making chairs, shoe lasts, the handles of tools, and for fuel. In old trees where the heartwood predominates the wood is red, and in younger trees where the sapwood is more conspicuous the wood is white, and these differences in color gave rise to the popular belief among woodcutters that there are two species of beech. Michaux accepted this theory, which has since become obsolete. The nuts are sweet and edible, and are sold in Canada and some of the Western and Middle States.
The generic name, Fagus, comes from the Greek phago (to eat), in allusion to the nuts, which have always been used as food.
The beech is found from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Texas.
European Beech Fagus sylvatica
A large tree with spreading branches and a smooth, gray trunk. Buds narrow and sharp-pointed. Twigs slender, smooth, and reddish brown in color, with alternate leaf-scars.
Although the beech stands alone in having no other tree like it, yet it is extremely difficult to tell the American beech from the European species which is planted commonly in our parks and gardens. The bark of the European beech is a darker gray in color, its buds are grayer than those of the American, and the inner scales of the bud have a tendency towards being more hairy along their edges; for the rest we must trust to our intuition in telling the trees apart, unless we are in the woods and know that there the only indigenous beech is the American.
From the time of Virgil the praises of the beech have been sung in both poetry and prose. Passienus Crispus, the orator, who married the Empress Agrippina, was so fond of it that “he not only delighted to repose beneath its shade, but he frequently poured wine on its roots, and used often to embrace it.” Evelyn and Cook recommended it, Boutcher thought that it “hardly had an equal,” Mathews called it “the Hercules and Adonis” of the sylva of Great Britain, and among the English poets Beaumont and Fletcher, Leigh Hunt, Gray, Campbell, and Wordsworth all loved and admired it for its rare beauty and vigor. Gilpin, however, does not join this chorus of praise; in his “Remarks on Forest Scenery” he calls it “an overgrown bush,” and explains at some length his reasons for thinking that it lacks picturesque beauty.
In Europe the wood has been used for more purposes than in America, and it also ranks high as fuel. In France oil is made from beechnuts, used in lamps and for cooking. The specific name, sylvatica, is from the Latin which means belonging to the woods.
