Used for shingles and rough construction.
Sometimes called shingle oak.
[LVII]
TREES WITH SIMPLE LEAVES
Beech is a beautiful tree with light gray bark, handsome foliage and valuable hard wood.
The seed is buckwheat-shaped, small and sweet. One of our most handsome shade trees, and although only one species is native to the United States, nurserymen have developed special varieties known as weeping beech and purple or copper beech. The European beech is also frequently planted on lawns and in parks. Its foliage is darker and has indentations so shallow that the leaf apparently has only a wavy outline.
Wood is hard, tough, fine-grained and takes a high polish. Used for the stocks of planes, handles, farming implements, and for some kinds of furniture.
The beech tree is supposed to be impervious to lightning, and recent experiments show that it offers considerable resistance to an electric current.
Birch.—The indentations of the beech are shallow and concave, while the birch leaf is known as double serrate, or double toothed, the teeth being themselves toothed. Five varieties are known in the Eastern states, black, red, yellow, white, and gray.