THE BEECH, CHESTNUT, AND OAKS
Family Fagaceæ
Although the beech, chestnut, and oaks are divided into three separate
genera, they all belong to the family _Fagaceæ_. It is an interesting
family in winter and deserves careful study, particularly the oaks,
which have always been more or less confusing at first sight.
There is one native beech and one native chestnut, and there are eleven
oaks in the Northeastern States.
[Sidenote: American Beech
_Fagus americana_]
_A beautiful, spreading tree 60 to 100 feet high, with a clean,
close-fitting, smooth, gray bark. Buds narrow and sharp-pointed, with
many overlapping scales. Twigs smooth, slender, and reddish brown, with
alternate leaf-scars. Fruit a prickly burr inclosing two triangular,
sharp-ridged nuts, the burr hanging on the trees well into the winter._
The beech is not so graceful as the elm, nor so lofty as the pine,
nor so stalwart as the oak, but there is not a tree in the woods so
distinctly lovable. In every detail the beech has a dainty, lady-like
beauty, and among the leafless trees of the winter woods it is as
fair as a flower, with its clean gray bole, its polished brown stems,
and its slender, pointed, lance-like buds. There is no other tree
with which the beech may be confused, and its characteristics are so
pronounced and unvarying that there is little difficulty in recognizing
it immediately in passing. When it has grown up partly shaded by other
trees it has a lofty bearing, but when it has developed in open ground
it is round-headed and spreading in shape. The beech trees from which
the following photograph was taken were once shaded by other trees,
and show this in the height they have attained and the absence of
spreading, lateral branches.
[Illustration: BEECH TREES
_Fagus Americana_
Page 78
]
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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A YOUNG BEECH
Page 80
]
The purple beech is a variety of this tree, which has been propagated
from the original sport found in a German forest over a hundred years
ago. Plants from the seeds of the purple beech have a tendency
to revert to the original green, and to insure its peculiar colored
foliage gardeners perpetuate it by layers. It is a highly artificial
tree, and unless it is carefully placed in appropriate surroundings its
effect is far from pleasing.
[Sidenote: Chestnut
_Castanea dentata_]
_One of the largest of our forest trees. The bark is dark hard, and
rugged, with coarse ridges on old trees. Light brown buds. Alternate
leaf-scars. Recent shoots are coarse and channelled with two grooves
running down from the base of each leaf-scar, closely set with white or
gray dots. Fruit ripe in October._
At all times a giant among trees, the chestnut seems perhaps most
remarkable in winter when the massive trunk and lofty branches can be
fully appreciated. There is much beauty in the bark of this tree, the
fissures sweep boldly up and down the trunk with broad, smooth spaces
between the furrows and give a most pleasing impression.
It is interesting to find that the chestnut is one of the exceptions
in nature to the rule that every tree has an unvarying mathematical
arrangement of leaves on the stem. This regular distribution of leaves
on the stem to economize space and light is called phyllotaxy, and
different trees follow various systematic arrangements. When the leaves
or leaf-scars are alternate on the stem, as they are in those of the
chestnut, the arrangement is spiral and one leaf follows another up the
stem in ranks of two, three, five, or more in definite order according
to the kind of tree. In the chestnut, however, the phyllotaxy is
frequently variable in different twigs of the same tree, and it follows
an unruly, wayward leaf arrangement.
The wood of the chestnut is light, soft, and not strong, but it is used
for making cheap furniture. It is also made into rails, posts, and
railroad ties, as it is durable when used in contact with the soil.
The nuts are sweet and edible and have great market value. The trees
bear fruit when they are very young, and some Western farmers find that
orchards of these trees bring better returns than the same amount of
land in farm products.
The chestnut is closely allied to the sweet or Spanish chestnut of
Europe. The nuts of the American species are sweeter than those of the
Spanish chestnut, but they are much smaller. From a French experiment
it was found that the kernel of the chestnut yields sixteen per cent of
good sugar.
[Illustration: CHESTNUT
_Castanea dentata_
Page 82
]
[Illustration:
1. Red Oak. 2. Scarlet Oak. 3. Black Oak. 4. Pin Oak.
5. Swamp White Oak. 6. White Oak. 7. Mossy-cup Oak.
8. Post Oak. 9. Chestnut Oak.
]
The generic name was taken from Castanea, a town in Thessaly, and the
specific name, _dentata_ (having teeth), refers to the serrations of
the leaf. The chestnut is found throughout the Northeastern States.
[Sidenote: Oaks
_Quercus_]
There are in all nearly three hundred different oaks which have been
described by botanists, and fifty of these are found in North America,
exclusive of Mexico. The oaks are large trees of temperate climates,
and both in Europe and America few trees have the same varied and
general usefulness. The extraordinary strength in the great, horizontal
branches, their breadth and lateral sweep, and the rugged boldness
of the trunk have long associated the oak with all that stands for
strength, duration, and unswerving vitality. An oak never seems out of
place; no matter whether we find it growing in unbroken forests, on
a country estate, in a little garden, or by the roadside, it always
harmonizes with its surroundings and adds to the composition of the
landscape.
Oaks are divided into two groups, the white oaks and the black oaks.
In New England there are eleven native oaks, six white oaks and five
black. The white oak, the swamp white, the mossy cup, the chestnut, the
dwarf chestnut, and the post oak belong to the first group, and the
black oak, the red, the scarlet, the pin, and the bear or scrub oak
belong to the second group.
The oak is distinguished from all other trees by its acorn.
The general characteristics of the oaks in winter are as follows:—
The upper lateral buds cluster at the top of the twig.
The buds have a tendency towards being five-sided in shape.
The bud scales are close and overlapping.
The leaf-scars project from the stem.
The bundle-scars are scattered over the leaf-scar.
The pith is five-angled. By cutting a twig across, the pith can be seen
in the centre in the form of a five-rayed star.
The leaves very often remain on oaks through the winter.
The following characteristics distinguish the white oaks from the black
oaks:—
The bark of the white oaks is lighter in color than that of the black
oaks, and it flakes off in strips instead of breaking away in coarse
ridges, as it does in the black oaks.
[Illustration: WHITE OAK
_Quercus alba_
Page 85
]
The acorns of the white oaks mature in one year, those of the black
oaks take two years to ripen, so that these young acorns are found
on the branches of the black oaks in winter.
The leaves of the white oaks have rounded lobes, and the lobes of the
black oak leaves are tipped with a sharp bristle point.
The generic name, _Quercus_, comes from the Celtic _quer_ (fine)
and _cuez_ (a tree), or possibly it may be derived from the Greek
_choiros_, a pig, because in Europe pigs formerly fed on the acorns of
oak trees.
[Sidenote: White Oak
_Quercus alba_]
_A large tree, 60 to 80 feet high, with a trunk often six feet in
diameter. The bark is light gray; the twigs smooth and light gray; the
recent shoots light reddish or grayish brown; alternate leaf-scars.
Small, round buds, smooth and short, about as long as they are wide.
Acorns in a shallow, rough cup, often sweet and edible._
The white oak seems to figure in one’s earliest associations with the
woods in winter. The sound of the withered leaves rustling in the wind
is peculiarly suggestive of cold weather and dreariness, and invariably
strikes the keynote of the woods on a bleak December day. Towards the
end of winter the leaves are blown away or fall off, and then the
beautiful ramifications and stalwart limbs of the trees are fully
revealed. I have often noticed in the country that when one large, old
white oak is found growing in an open pasture, there are usually five
or six more of the same size and age within a short distance. This may
be accounted for by the fact that in the early New England days these
trees were in great demand for ship-building, and farmers waited for
the most promising trees to reach maturity before selling them. On some
farms these oaks happened to escape the axe, and have not only outlived
the men who spared them, but stand for landmarks now, long after the
farms themselves have been deserted and forgotten.
The wood of the white oak is very heavy and hard, and durable in
contact with the soil. It is used in the construction and interior
finish of buildings and in ship-building, for making carriages,
cabinets, agricultural implements, baskets, and for fences and railroad
ties. It also makes excellent firewood.
The specific name refers to the light color of the wood and bark in
contrast with that of the black oaks. It is found from Southern Maine
to Northern Florida and westward.
[Sidenote: Swamp White Oak
_Quercus platanoides_]
_A large tree, 60 to 80 feet high, common in swamps and where the soil
is moist. The bark shags off along the branches, and the trunk is
more deeply fissured than that of the white oak. The twigs are
coarser than those of the white oak, often shorter in length, and the
stems are rounder. Short, thick-set buds and alternate leaf-scars.
Acorns set in a shallow cup, often mossy-fringed at the margin; the nut
is sweet and edible._
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A WHITE OAK
Page 86
]
When once the swamp white oak’s peculiarities are known it is seldom
confused with any other oak, even in winter. Its unkempt appearance,
the peeling away of the bark along the branches, and its generally
straggling habit of growth distinguish it quite as much in the winter
as at any other season of the year; it is at all times the untidy
member of the oak family. The branches begin very low down on the trunk
of this oak, and one can distinguish the tree from a distance in this
way. Emerson says that in warm and sheltered situations it is a neat
and beautiful tree, but that when it is too much exposed to the east or
north wind it shows the effect by its ragged appearance; as one sees
the tree generally through Southeastern New England one deduces from
its appearance that the prevalent winds are those from the east and
north.
The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and tough, and is used for the
same things that that of the white oak is used for, and is not
distinguished from it commercially.
The specific name, _platanoides_ (platanus-like), comes from the
generic name of the plane tree or buttonwood, and refers to the bark
of the young trees, which, like that of the buttonwood, separates and
curls off in large thin flakes along the branches.
The swamp white oak grows in low, wet ground throughout the
Northeastern States.
[Sidenote: Mossy Cup, Overcup or Bur Oak
_Quercus macrocarpa_]
_A large tree, sometimes 160 feet high. The bark is corky, with corky
ridges along the twigs. The buds are like those of the swamp white oak,
but the scales are more pointed. Often the dried stipule or a piece of
it is left, as it is persistent in this species. Alternate leaf-scars.
The acorn is almost entirely enclosed in a thick cup with a mossy
fringed border._
The curious corky ridges along the twigs distinguish the mossy cup oak
at all seasons of the year, and its aspect in winter is unusual and
picturesque, owing to this peculiarity.
[Illustration: MOSSY CUP OAK
_Quercus macrocarpa_
Page 88
]
The branches are irregular, the buds are small, and the acorns are
large and enclosed for more than half their length in a cup covered
with prominent scales and bordered with a thread-like fringe. Michaux
says that these threads do not appear when the tree is in the midst
of a forest or when the summers are not very warm.
The wood of the mossy cup oak is even more valuable than that of the
white oak. It is heavy, strong, hard, tough, close-grained, and durable
in contact with the soil. It is used for the same purposes as that of
the white oak.
One can easily trace the family resemblance between the mossy cup oak
and the cork tree of Southern Europe, which yields the cork of commerce.
The specific name, _macrocarpa_, comes from two Greek words meaning
large fruit, and refers to the cups and acorns. The mossy cup oak is
found in the West and in certain localities in New England. It is found
on the banks of the Penobscot River in Maine, on the shores of Lake
Champlain in Vermont, and among the Berkshire Hills, near Stockbridge,
and on the banks of the Ware River in Massachusetts.
[Sidenote: Chestnut or Rock Chestnut Oak
_Quercus prinus_]
_A middle-sized or small tree usually, although it is sometimes 100
feet high. The bark does not flake. The buds are pointed,—an exception
for the white oaks. The buds are long in proportion to their width.
There is no pubescence on the bud, the edges of the scales are
bleached and have turned gray, the centres remaining a rich reddish
brown. Smooth, glossy twigs, move apt to be ridged than those of the
white oak. Alternate leaf-scars. The acorn is covered nearly halfway
with a thick cup. The kernel is sweetish and edible._
The chestnut oak is distinguished in winter by its beautiful smooth
bark and by its pointed buds, entirely unlike those of the other white
oaks. It sometimes grows to be a large tree, but in New England it is
usually middle-sized or small.
The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and close-grained, and is used for
making fences, railway ties, and for fuel. The bark is rich in tannin,
and is used for tanning leather.
The specific name was derived from the Greek, and was the ancient name
for an oak tree.
The chestnut oak is found on the banks of the Saco River and near Mount
Agamenticus in Southern Maine, among the Blue Hills and in rich woods
in Massachusetts, and it becomes more common as one goes south.
[Illustration: A YOUNG POST OAK
_Quercus minor_
Page 91
]
The dwarf chestnut, or chinquapin oak (_Quercus prinoides_), is the
smallest member of the oak family in New England, and seldom grows
to be more than two or three feet high. It is found in Massachusetts
and in the South and West.
It is a small shrub of no commercial value, although its little
branches are rich in tannin. The specific name, _prinoides_, means
prinus-like, the name of the chestnut oak, and refers to the general
resemblance between the two species.
[Sidenote: Post or Rough Oak
_Quercus minor_]
_A medium-sized tree, 40 to 50 feet high. Buds and twigs stumpy and
thick set with short branching. Buds very round and rusty. Twig
persistently rough, alternate leaf-scars, the bark is hard and rough.
Acorn enclosed in a deep, saucer-shaped cup._
The branches of the post oak are so thick set, short, and crooked that
this oak is seldom confused with any other. It rarely grows to be
more than twenty-five or thirty feet high, and the many low, crooked
branches, crowded together at the base of the trunk, give, as Emerson
says, the effect of the top of a tree whose trunk is under ground. The
leaves of the post oak are often held through the winter, and they
are so stiff, rough, and abundant that they are, in themselves, a
distinguishing mark. The specimen in the Arnold Arboretum, from which
the accompanying photograph was taken, holds its leaves later in the
spring than any of the other oaks.
The wood is heavy, close-grained, hard, and durable, but it is
difficult to season. It is used in the construction of houses, in the
manufacture of carriages, and for cooperage, fencing, railway ties, and
for fuel.
The specific name, _minor_ (smaller), refers to the height of this oak
as compared with that of the larger members of the family.
The post oak is found from Southern Massachusetts—on Cape Cod, on the
islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Naushon—to Northern Florida and, in
certain localities, west to Eastern Kansas.
[Sidenote: Black Oak
_Quercus velutina_]
_A large tree, 70 to 80 and (rarely) 150 feet high. Bark thick, rough,
and dark. Twigs smooth, with a bitter taste. Alternate leaf-scars. Buds
very downy, sharp-pointed, and large. The acorns are set in a deep,
conspicuously scaly cup. The kernel is bitter._
[Illustration: BLACK OAK
_Quercus velutina_
Page 92
]
The black oak is distinguished by its rough, dark outer bark and rich
yellow inner bark (which is seen when a small cut is made with a
penknife), and its downy pointed buds. On young trees as well as old
ones, the bark is very rough at the base of the trunk, and this
roughness extends upwards in old trees.
The round, thin, brittle balls found on black oaks and known as
oak-apples are produced by an insect which injures the leaf by
puncturing it and depositing an egg. This causes irritation and an
abnormal growth, from which the apple is formed. The grub which lives
inside this excrescence becomes a chrysalis in the autumn, and changes
to a fly in the spring, when it gnaws its way out by making a little
hole through the shell.
The wood of the black oak is heavy, hard, and strong, but not tough,
and it is liable to check in drying. The bark is rich in tannin, and
it makes a yellow dye,—quercitron,—obtained from the inner bark. Used
medicinally the bark is an astringent.
The specific name, _velutina_, was taken originally from the Latin word
_vellus_, meaning shorn wool, and was applied by botanists to this tree
on account of the fleecy character of the recent stems and leaves. The
black oak is found growing throughout New England and in the South and
West.
[Sidenote: Red Oak
_Quercus rubra_]
_A large tree, 60 to 150 feet high. The bark is fissured in long
clefts, with broad, smooth places between, giving the trunk a fluted
column effect. Large, sharp-pointed buds, with close scales. The red
oak buds resemble to some extent those of the chestnut oak, but there
is a fine hair on the scales of the red oak buds, while the scales of
the chestnut oak buds are bleached and have no hair. Where the base of
the bud joins the stem the buds of the red oak are more constricted
than those of the chestnut oak, and the chestnut oak buds seem more
sessile. Alternate leaf-scars. Acorn set in a shallow cup of fine
scales._
The red oak is a lofty, wide-spreading tree of great beauty. “No other
oak,” Emerson says, “flourishes so readily in every situation, no other
is of so rapid growth, no other surpasses it in beauty of foliage
and of trunk; no oak attains, in this climate, to more magnificent
dimensions; no tree, except the white oak, gives us so noble an idea of
strength.”
It is perhaps, of all the black oak group, the easiest to distinguish
in winter on account of the smooth spaces between the fissures of the
bark on its trunk, and its pointed buds, which are much less downy than
those of the black oak.
The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, but it is not particularly
valuable. It is used in the construction and interior finish of houses
and for making cheap furniture.
[Illustration: RED OAK
_Quercus rubra_
Page 94
]
The specific name, _rubra_, was given to it on account of the rich, red
midrib and veins of the leaves.
It is the oak which is found farthest north, and it grows in all kinds
of soil from Nova Scotia southward to Northern Georgia. The red oak was
one of the earliest American trees introduced into Europe.
[Sidenote: Scarlet Oak
_Quercus coccinea_]
_A large tree, 60 to 80 feet high. The bark is grayish and not deeply
furrowed. Slender twigs, with small, alternate leaf-scars. Small buds,
the tips being half as hairy as those of the black oak, while the bases
are smooth. The acorn is one-half or more enclosed in a coarsely scaled
cup. Its kernel is bitter._
The scarlet oak is the most brilliant member of the oak family. In
summer its leaves are a shining green, in autumn they turn more
glowingly red than those of any other oak, and in winter its buds and
stems are smooth, and show more color than those of the other members
of the genus. Its outline is less spreading in shape than those of oaks
generally, and the bark of the trunk is not so coarsely furrowed as the
black oak’s, nor so smooth as that of the red oak.
The wood is heavy and hard, and is used for the same purposes as red
oak.
The specific name, _coccinea_ (of a scarlet color), refers to the hue
of the foliage in the autumn.
The scarlet oak is found growing throughout the Northeastern States and
also in the South and West.
[Sidenote: Pin Oak
_Quercus palustris_]
_A small or medium-sized tree in New England, although it reaches the
height of 120 feet in the forests of the West. It is excurrent in
growth. In its youth the branches are rigid and horizontal, and have a
tendency to droop stiffly towards the ground. The branches and twigs
are persistent, some of the twigs often becoming small, stiff, pin-like
spurs, which are a distinctive characteristic of the tree. The buds are
small and the twigs slender. Alternate leaf-scars. The acorn is half an
inch long, in a shallow, saucer-shaped cup with thin scales._
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A RED OAK
Page 95
]
The outline of the pin oak is not in the least like that of any other
oak after its leaves have fallen; for while most oaks are distinguished
by their far-reaching lateral branches which divide a short distance at
the trunk, the pin oak carries its main stem to the top of the tree,
and the lateral branches grow from the trunk, forming a pyramidal
head. In the forests where it grows in swamps and wet places, it loses
this shape, but even then the branches are characteristically rigid
and grow near together. The pyramidal shape of this tree, its small,
delicate buds and branches, and the pin-like twigs, from which it takes
its name of pin oak, make it easily recognized as we see it growing in
our parks and gardens.
The wood is hard and strong, where the tree is found growing commonly,
and is used in the construction of houses and for shingles and
clapboards.
The specific name is from the Latin _paluster_, an adjective
meaning swampy or boggy, and has reference to the moisture-seeking
characteristics of the tree.
The pin oak is found growing on the banks of the Connecticut River in
Massachusetts, but it occurs more commonly in the South and West.
The scrub or bear oak (_Quercus pumila_) is a dwarfed, straggling bush,
three to ten feet high, and found on sandy, barren, and rocky hills
from Maine to Carolina. Its specific name, _pumila_ (dwarf), was given
to it on account of its size and crooked manner of growth.
[Illustration: PIN OAK
_Quercus palustris_
Page 96
]