Last but not least in stunning fall yellows is the beech tree, perhaps my favorite tree of all. The maples have shed their leaves. Oaks are hanging on to drab leaves. Soon the forest will be owned by hemlock and white pine trees but now it’s all about the beech tree. This forest was aglow with shades of yellow as we trekked about 3 miles on beautiful trails.
White pines in the picture below grow through and tower above the slow-growing beech tree’s lemony fall canopy.
The leaves of beech trees are alternate with toothed margins and straight parallel veins on short stalks. The trunk in the background below is a white pine.
The beech trunk is said to resemble an elephant’s leg with the smooth, thin, wrinkled light gray bark. What do you think?
The leaves that fall and cover the ground are springy and odorless, thus the perfect filler for mattresses for early Americans and those in other countries.
“The leaves of the chestnut tree make very wholesome mattresses to lie on… [Beech leaves]… being gathered about their fall, and somewhat before they are much frost-bitten, afford the best and easiest mattresses in the world to lay under our quilts instead of straw; because, besides their tenderness and loose lying together, they continue sweet for seven or eight years long; before which time straw becomes musty and hard; they are thus used by divers persons of quality in Dauphine; and in Switzerland I have sometimes lain on them to my great refreshment…”
John Evelyn, Sylva: A discourse of forest-trees, 1670.
To see the massive old beech tree we left behind in Virginia, click HERE. Beneath the tree we recovered a wine bottle from the late 1700’s or early 1800’s and very large oyster shells discarded in a pit. It was fun to think the tree sheltered those folks at an early American oyster roast.
“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree…..”
– Henry David Thoreau, 1817 – 1862
The leaves on the trees in Tidewater are just beginning to turn colors.
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How amazing is that! Despite our extreme drought, our colors were technicolor this year. Now the battle with fallen leaves begins.
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Lovely images. We drove out to Keene on Friday and were surprised how colorful it still is in Southern New Hampshire…Cheers!
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Sounds like a beautiful drive. I’m guessing the color yellow dominated on the mountains this time of year. Our son in Keene reported over an inch of snow already…melted overnight, but driving home from work was tense. Wonder if that is a foreshadowing of our New England winter.
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We have a few beech dotted through our woods, and just love that brilliant leaf color and white bark through most of winter. Maybe our favorite tree too.
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I’m with you on that! And another good thing: each spiny seed pod a tree produces holds 2-4 nuts consumed by a multitude of wildlife.
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Beautiful….thank you for sharing especially for those of us not around these spectacular fall colors!!
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One of my favorite trees.
There is a gnarly old beech here, not far from our back door. My Daddy carved his initials into that tree over 75 years ago and I can still read them.
In the dead of winter, when the leaves are all shed, the young beech trees still hold onto theirs. So when I look into the woods, at eye level I see beech leaves.
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The thing I love about beeches is the way they hold onto coppery leaves in the winter, which show so nicely against the silvery bark. Lovely trees and they can get huge.
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Good reasons to love this tree!
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