Lovers often carve their names into the smooth, pale bark of beech trees, so it’s a real treat to find big, beastly beeches with hardly a scratch! Carving into beech trees not only opens the tree up to infection, but the wound may affect how the tree takes in nutrients. Clearly, humans adding their own special touches to the bark isn’t doing the tree any favors, and I don’t think anyone’s relationship got much better after branding their love onto a tree.
Beech trees also produce tasty nuts! The nut is sweet and small, nestled inside a spiny shell that opens like a flower when it’s ready. While the nuts are a favorite for wildlife like turkeys, blue jays, and squirrels, they’re also a treat for foraging humans—though cracking them open takes some effort.
Beneath the surface, beech trees are busy exchanging resources with fungi in the soil through their mycorrhizal network. They also play host to parasitic plants like beech drops (Epifagus virginiana). Wherever there is a beech tree resides a bounty of wonderful examples showcasing their interconnectedness with the landscape.
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