Beech

. Beech trees can be seen all over Scotland, though it is not native here, having been introduced a few hundred years ago by landowners, mostly from the Beech woods of Southern England. The Gaelic name is pronounced ‘fybil’ Although occasionally planted to produce timber it has mostly been planted to adorn estates and parks and avenues, its great size – up to thirty metres high – making it stand out in the landscape, a great bare grey trunk towering into a spreading crown. The bark is smooth, but may be pitted and knobbly on old trees. In Spring the fine pointed buds on fine twigs – in Gaelic ‘meanglan’ - lose their shiny cases, and soft fresh green leaves appear, turning darker and glossy, small and oval and pointed. The leaves turn russet orange in the Autumn, and on young trees remain all Winter, brown and papery. As leaves are opening in Summer the little yellow male flowers appear, and the little pink female flowers, which quite rapidly turn dark red and green as the seed case forms. Later on these become little spiky oval cases, that, turning woody, open out to release the seeds, little edible nuts inside a shiny bronze shell, two to four in each case. The nuts are sometimes called beech mast, or ‘bàcha’ in Gaelic. Beech trees can be grown easily, and are sturdy and long-lived, and they make fine hedging, common in many parts of Scotland - in Winter pale brown with the scatter of remaining leaves. In late Winter and early Spring woodpeckers can be heard from the Beech woods – one of their favourite kinds of tree. The attractive-grained timber of Beech is valued for furniture-making, its logs and limbs make very good firewood and its brittle twigs fallen from the high canopy superb kindling.