American Beech – Fagus  grandifolia

 

Nomenclature:

  • Fagus grandifolia
  • Family: Fagaceae

 

Botany and Ecology:

  • Tree height: 60’- 100’
  • Tree diameter: 2’- 3’
  • Leaves are broad, flat, simple, not lobed, course teeth, and 2”-5” long
  • Fruit involves a nut in a thin, spiny husk and less than 2” in diameter
  • Grows in deep, fertile, well-drained, and moist soils
  • Smooth gray bark
  • Distribution:
    • United States: AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV
    • Canada: NB, NS, ON, PE, QC

Uses:

  • Edible:
    • Seeds: raw or cooked are sweet and nutritious
    • Roasted seeds can be used as a coffee substitute
    • Inner bark used in thickening soups
  • Medicinal:
    • Boiled leaves used to treat frostbite, burns, poison ivy rashes, etc.
    • Tea made from the bark is used to treat lung ailments
  • Other:
    • Timber

 

Conservation:

·        Conservation Status: Apparently Secure. While this is not an inherently rare type, and some examples are protected on public land, and it has a wide distribution, mature examples are uncommon and vulnerable to timber removal.

·        http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchCommunityUid=ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.689724. [Date Accessed: July 07, 2008].

 

Markets and Vendors:

 

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