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Beech (genus Fagus) is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted species in two distinct subgenera, Englerianae and Fagus. The subgenus Englerianae is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark. The better known species of subgenus Fagus are native to Europe, western and eastern Asia and eastern North America. They are high-branching trees with tall, stout trunks and smooth silver-grey bark.
The European beech Fagus sylvatica is the most commonly cultivated species, yielding a utility timber used for furniture construction, flooring and engineering purposes, in plywood, and household items. The timber can be used to build homes. Beechwood makes excellent firewood. Slats of washed beech wood are spread around the bottom of fermentation tanks for Budweiser beer. Beech logs are burned to dry the malt used in some German . Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham, andouille sausage, and some cheeses.
The European beech ( Fagus sylvatica) is the most commonly cultivated, although few important differences are seen between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape. The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from long and broad.
The bark is smooth and light gray. The fruit is a small, sharply three-angled nut long, borne singly or in pairs in soft-spined husks long, known as cupules. The husk can have a variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the character of which is, in addition to leaf shape, one of the primary ways beeches are differentiated. The nuts are called beechnuts or beech mast and have a bitter taste (though not nearly as bitter as ) and a high tannin content.
The better known subgenus Fagus beeches are high-branching with tall, stout trunks and smooth silver-gray bark. This group includes five extant species in continental and insular East Asia ( Fagus crenata, F. longipetiolata, Fagus lucida, and the cryptic sister species Fagus hayatae and Fagus pashanica) , two pseudo-cryptic species in eastern North America ( F. grandifolia , Fagus mexicana), and a species complex of at least four species ( Fagus caspica, F. hohenackeriana, Fagus orientalis, Fagus sylvatica) in Western Eurasia. Their genetics are highly complex and include both species-unique as well as alleles and ribosomal DNA spacers that are shared between two or more species. The western Eurasian species are characterized by morphological and genetical gradients.
Research suggests that the first representatives of the modern-day genus were already present in the Paleocene of Arctic North America (western Greenland) and quickly radiated across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with a first Biodiversity peak in the Miocene of northeastern Asia. The contemporary species are the product of past, repeated reticulate evolutionary processes (Outcrossing, introgression, hybridization). As far as studied, heterozygosity and intragenomic variation are common in beech species, and their chloroplast genomes are nonspecific with the exception of the Western Eurasian and North American species.
Fagus is the first diverging lineage in the evolution of the Fagaceae family, which also includes and . The oldest fossils that can be assigned to the beech lineage are 81–82 million years old pollen from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming, United States. The southern beeches (genus Nothofagus) historically thought closely related to beeches, are treated as members of a separate family, the Nothofagaceae (which remains a member of the order Fagales). They are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, as well as Argentina and Chile (principally Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego).
| Fagus caspica – Caspian beech | Fagus | New species described in 2024; first-diverging lineage within the Western Eurasian group | Talysh Mountains and Alborz, southeastern Azerbaijan and northern Iran | Populations included in F. sylvatica subsp. orientalis | |
| Fagus chienii | Fagus | Probably extinct, described from a single location in China (Sichuan). Individuals recently collected at the type locality were morphologically and genetically indistinguishable from F. pashanica. | Yes | ||
| Fagus crenata – Siebold's beech or Japanese beech | Fagus | Japan; in the mountains of Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu, down to sea-level in southern Hokkaido. | Yes | ||
| Fagus engleriana – Chinese beech | Englerianae | China; south of the Yellow River | Yes | ||
| Fagus grandifolia – American beech | Fagus | Eastern North America; from E. Texas and N. Florida, United States, to the St. Lawrence River, Canada at low to mid altitudes | Yes, including Mexican beeches, F. mexicana | ||
| Fagus hayatae | Fagus | Taiwan; restricted to the mountains of northern Taiwan | Yes | ||
| Fagus hohenackeriana – Hohenacker's or Caucasian beech | Fagus | Dominant tree species of the Pontic and Caucasus Mountains; intermediate between F. caspica and F. orientalis. Its genetic heterogeneity may be indicative for ongoing speciation processes. | Northeastern Anatolia (Pontic Mountains, Kaçkar Mountains) and Caucasus region (Lesser Caucasus and Greater Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, North Caucasus; down to sea-level in southwestern Georgia) | No, populations included in F. sylvatica subsp. orientalis | |
| Fagus japonica | Englerianae | Japan; Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu from sea-level up to c. 1500 m a.s.l. | Yes | ||
| Fagus longipetiolata | Fagus | Sympatry to Parapatry with F. lucida and F. pashanica, and sharing alleles with both species in addition to alleles indicating a sister relationship with the Japanese F. crenata. | China, south of the Yellow River, into N. Vietnam; in montane areas up to 2400 m a.s.l. | Replaced by F. sinensis | |
| Fagus lucida | Fagus | China; south of the Yellow River in montane areas between 800 and 2000 m a.s.l. | Yes | ||
| Fagus mexicana | Fagus | Narrow endemic sister species of F. grandifolia. F. mexicana differs from F. grandifolia by its slender leaves and less-evolved but more polymorphic set of alleles (higher level of Zygosity) | Hidalgo, Mexico; at 1400–2000 m a.s.l. as an element of the subtropical montane mesophilic forest"( bosque mesófilo de montaña) superimposing the tropical lowland rainforests. | No, populations included in F. grandifolia | |
| Fagus multinervis | Englerianae | South Korea (Ulleungdo) | Yes | ||
| Fagus orientalis – Oriental beech (in a narrow sense) | Fagus | Southeastern Europe (SE Bulgaria, NE Greece, East Thrace) and adjacent northwestern Asia (NW and N Anatolia) | No, treated as subspecies of F. sylvatica | ||
| Fagus pashanica | Fagus | China (Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang), at 1300–2300 m a.s.l.(eFlora of China, as F. hayatae) | Yes | ||
| Fagus sinensis | Fagus | China (Hubei), Vietnam | Yes, erroneously used as older synonym of F. longipetiolata | ||
| Fagus sylvatica – European beech | Fagus | Europe | Yes | ||
| Fagus ( ×) moesiaca | F. sylvatica × F. orientalis | No evidence so far for hybrid origin. All individuals addressed as F. moesiaca included in genetic studies fell within the variation of F. sylvatica. They may represent a lowland ecotype of F. sylvatica. Erroneously synonymized by some authors (e.g. POWO) with the Crimean F. × taurica, from which it differs morphologically and genetically. | Southeastern Balkans | |
| Fagus okamotoi | F. crenata × F. japonica ? | Unique phenotype, described from an area in which F. crenata and F. japonica are sympatric. So far, there is no genetic evidence for ongoing gene flow between the two Japanese species, which belong to different subgeneric lineages. | Kanto, eastern Honshu | |
| F. sylvatica × F. orientalis s.l. | Crimean peninsula | |||
Fossil species formerly placed in Fagus include:
Beech is not native to Ireland; however, it was widely planted in the 18th century and can become a problem shading out the native woodland understory.
Beech is widely planted for hedging and in deciduous woodlands, and mature, regenerating stands occur throughout mainland Britain at elevations below about . (2025). 9780198510673, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198510673 The tallest and longest hedge in the world (according to Guinness World Records) is the Meikleour Beech Hedge in Meikleour, Perth and Kinross, Scotland.
As a naturally growing forest tree, beech marks the important border between the European deciduous forest zone and the northern pine forest zone. This border is important for wildlife and fauna.
In Denmark and Scania at the southernmost peak of the Scandinavian peninsula, southwest of the natural spruce boundary, it is the most common forest tree. It grows naturally in Denmark and southern Norway and Sweden up to about 57–59°N. The most northern known naturally growing (not planted) beech trees are found in a small grove north of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Near the city of Larvik is the largest naturally occurring beech forest in Norway, Bøkeskogen.
Some research suggests that early agriculture patterns supported the spread of beech in continental Europe. Research has linked the establishment of beech stands in Scandinavia and Germany with cultivation and fire disturbance, i.e. early agricultural practices. Other areas which have a long history of cultivation, Bulgaria for example, do not exhibit this pattern, so how much human activity has influenced the spread of beech trees is as yet unclear.
The primeval beech forests of the Carpathians are also an example of a singular, complete, and comprehensive forest dominated by a single tree species - the beech tree. Forest dynamics here were allowed to proceed without interruption or interference since the last ice age. Nowadays, they are amongst the last pure beech forests in Europe to document the undisturbed postglacial repopulation of the species, which also includes the unbroken existence of typical animals and plants. These virgin beech forests and similar forests across 12 countries in continental Europe were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007.
The dead brown leaves of the American beech remain on the branches until well into the following spring, when the new buds finally push them off.
In North America, they can form beech-maple climax community forests by partnering with the sugar maple.
The beech blight aphid ( Grylloprociphilus imbricator) is a common pest of American beech trees. Beeches are also used as food plants by some species of Lepidoptera.
Beech bark is extremely thin and scars easily. Since the beech tree has such delicate bark, carvings, such as lovers' initials and other forms of graffiti, remain because the tree is unable to heal itself. (1984). 9780133140712, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780133140712
Beech leaf disease is a disease that affects American beeches spread by the newly discovered nematode, Litylenchus crenatae mccannii. This disease was first discovered in Lake County, Ohio, in 2012 and has now spread to over 41 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, Canada. As of 2024, the disease has become widespread in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and in portions of coastal New Hampshire and coastal and central Maine.University of New Hampshire
Some drums are made from beech, which has a tone between those of maple and birch, the two most popular drum woods.
The textile modal is a kind of rayon often made wholly from reconstituted cellulose of pulped beech wood.holistic-interior-designs.com, Modal Fabric , retrieved 9 October 2011uniformreuse.co.uk, Modal data sheet , retrieved 9 October 2011fabricstockexchange.com, Modal (dictionary entry), retrieved 9 October 2011
The European species Fagus sylvatica yields a tough, utility timber. It weighs about 720 kg per cubic metre and is widely used for furniture construction, flooring, and engineering purposes, in plywood and household items, but rarely as a decorative wood. The timber can be used to build chalets, houses, and log cabins.
Beech wood is used for the stocks of military rifles when traditionally preferred woods such as walnut are scarce or unavailable or as a lower-cost alternative.
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