American beech
Fagus grandifolia
American beech is a long lived eastern deciduous tree, useful for its wood quality and production of nuts valuable to wildlife diets. Slow growing and very shade tolerant, American beech is a climax successional species.
Fall
Color.
The dense wood is used in turning and steam bending, flooring, furniture, veneer, containers, plywood, pulp, charcoal, and fuelwood.
Triangular shaped beech nuts are eaten by a large variety of wildlife.
High shade tolerance and slow growth rate call for methods that provide some degree of canopy cover, such as shelterwood and group and single tree selections.
beech bark disease
Fun facts
Beech is very shade tolerant, and assumes dominance on many northern hardwood sites in association with sugar maple and yellow birch. Older, large trees are often hollow and were once used commonly as culverts in road building.Fagus
Latin name from Greek "phagein" (to eat - edible nuts).
grandifolia
grand foliage.
2004 Virginia
Tech Forestry Department, all rights reserved. Text, images, and programming
by: Dr. Jeff Kirwan, Dr. John R. Seiler, John A. Peterson, Edward C. Jensen,
Guy Phillips, or Andrew
S. Meeks.
questions, comments, and criticisms: email John.Peterson@vt.edu