The con»»on Beech. li'ayns Americana, is our one native species. It ranges all over the eastern half of the continent, its western limit being Wisconsin and Texas.
The European Beech, Fayns sylcatica, is much planted in parks in this country. Its head is more oval than our native tree tun] its hark is darker gray. Its leaf is glossy and dark green above, paler beneath, and is smaller than the leaf of the American species.. There are in enItivation many ornamental varieties which have been derived from the European Beech. The Purple or Copper Beech has glossy dark red leaves. A handsome form of it is the Weeping Purple Beech. Another variety hats its leaves deeply cleft; another is a contorted and dwarfed form, grotesque rather than beautiful.
The roots of the beech have no power to feed the tree. This pecu liarity is not exclusively confined to this tree. The oaks, the locusts, and many of the conifers share it. The gathering of food from the soil is done by the filaments of at colorless fungus whose delicate meshes form a web over each root tip of the tree. This fungus gathers food
from the porous soil about the roots. The fungus has no green color Mg matter, and it never sees the stun ; hence it is unable to make starch. and would (lie if dependent upon its own exertion's for food.
treaty of reciprocity exists between the tree and the fungus. The hitter gathers plant food from the soil, and transmits it to the roots of the tree. It mounts as crude sap to the leaves, when sunlight., acting upon the green leaves, converts raw food-stuffs into starchy compounds. A part of this product returning to the roots is shared with the fungus. Thus mutually helpful, the tree and the fungus thrive, as if they were intimate parts of a single organism. scientist calls this Or a symbiotic rciation between roots and fungi.
In transplanting beech trees, one must handle then) very card:111y. If great quantities of the fungus are torn away, or if the roots are allowed tee become dry, the tree is doomed to die of starvation.