American Beech
Fagus grandifolia · Fagaceae · Deciduous
Beech is instantly recognisable from its smooth grey elephant-hide bark, which stays smooth for the tree's whole life while almost every other large tree develops furrows. Young beeches also hold their dead tan leaves all winter, lighting up the bare understorey.
Quick facts
- Arrangement
- alternate
- Leaf
- Oval, distinctly ribbed, with a straight parallel vein running to each marginal tooth. Dead leaves turn papery tan and hang on through winter.
- Bark
- Smooth, tight and pale silver-grey at every age — the tree people carve initials into.
- Fruit
- A small prickly husk splitting to release two triangular nuts.
- Height
- 50–80 ft
How to confirm it
- Smooth pale grey bark at all ages, never furrowed.
- A straight vein running to every tooth on the leaf edge.
- Long, slender, sharply pointed buds like cigars.
- Dead leaves retained through winter on young trees.
What it is confused with
One observation settles each of these.
Hornbeam bark is smooth but muscular and sinewy rather than evenly round, and its leaves are doubly toothed.
Where it grows
Eastern North America, in mature hardwood forest, often forming groves from root suckers.
Start here: opposite or alternate?
Look at where the leaves join the twig. Are they in matched pairs directly across from each other, or staggered one after another? The vast majority of trees are alternate, so finding an opposite tree removes almost everything else in one step.
In North America, opposite-leaved trees are remembered as MAD Cap Horse: Maple, Ash, Dogwood, Caprifoliaceae (viburnums and elders), and Horse chestnut. That is very nearly the whole list.
Check partway along a healthy twig rather than at the tip, where crowding can make alternate leaves look paired. And check more than one twig.