Blank

Botanical name: Fagus sylvatica

Family: Fagaceae

Common Name: Beech, European Beech

Habitat and Distribution

A British (S. England and Wales) and European native, particularly on chalk soils, but will also thrive on well-drained acid soils

Description:

A deciduous tree to 40 metres (130 ft), some ancient pollards have reached a thickness in excess of 2.5 metres (8 ft).

A hugely domed crown on mature trees, often with sweeping, self-layering branches, above a smooth silver-grey trunk Ovate leaves, silky hairy and emerald green on emergence from slender long-pointed, light brown winter buds, later turn dark green, then yellow and rich orange-brown in autumn. It has been said that no other tree betters the rich golden copper of the autumn foliage.

Tiny flowers, male and female on the same plant, emerge with the leaves in May, giving rise to clusters of triangular, shiny brown nuts enclosed in a bristly case (beech mast).

Timber:

More European beech is now used in the UK than any other hardwood. Timber has smooth, straight grain that varies in colour from pale cream to pale pinkish-brown, but always marked with tiny darker brown flecks.

Trees are harvested at 80-110 years.

Uses:

Used ‘in solid’ as a building material indoors in England since the 13^th century. It is the most useful wood for mass produced, machine-made furniture, because it is so easy to work with or across the grain and when rotary peeled, yields large sheets of attractive veneer for facing plywood. Immensely versatile, beech is often stained as a substitute for mahogany or Jacobean oak and being cheaper than walnut and rosewood was, in the 17-18^th centuries, often grained to imitate them. It takes paint

Location within the arboretum:

A pair of specimens is to be found on the Furniture Makers Walk.

Furniture Makers Trees at The Arboretum - Kew at Castle Howard

and silver or gilt gesso well and has been used in all manner of fine furniture and cabinet making.

It is used in laminated furniture, steam-bent for half-round chair backs or curved legs and turned for Windsor chair parts.

Spalted beech, infected by fungus after felling and streaked with black lines, is valued for turning, carving and veneers.

Has many other uses such as bowls, kitchen utensils and tools.

Good for firewood and production of charcoal.

The nut is known as mast and occurs in abundance every five to eight years. It is nutritious and rich in oil and attractive to birds and small mammals including deer and badger. The oil can be extracted and used for culinary purposes