- Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck Purple'
- Europe
Genus
Fagus is the Latin name for the beech. The most beautiful and, together with the oak, the most important tree of the deciduous forest; up to 400 years old. The genus comprises ten species.
Deciduous, large, stately, over 40 meters high and wide forest, park, garden and landscape tree with great design and ecological qualities.
The tall, smooth, silver-grey trunks with mighty strong branches support the green canopy. In bionics, it is "the model of the Gothic cathedral".
The leaves have entire margins, are egg-shaped, pointed, 4 - 10 cm long, smooth, light green, yellow-brown in autumn and remain on the shoot until spring.
The Celts carved oracle signs/runes into beech wood. In China, the beech is immortalized in the oracle wisdom "Ching". St. Hildegard von Bingen used beech wood as a remedy for cramps, fever and jaundice, and beech ash was used to treat ulcers and wounds in humans and animals.
In the vernacular, the saying arose during thunderstorms: "You should avoid oaks, you should flee from spruces, you should also avoid willows, but you should seek out beeches".
Information on the species
Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck Purple'
The word sylvatica is Latin and means belonging to the forest or forest-dwelling.
It is the result of a mutation. Red-leaved, strictly columnar. Found in the woods near Dawyck (Scotland) in 1964 and introduced by the Hesse nursery. Medium-sized, up to 25 meters tall, strictly upright growing tree with a narrow, columnar crown, three meters wide and wavy side branches.
Leaves: red, ovate-pointed, up to ten centimetres long
Flowers: monoecious. Male flowers in spherical clusters on stems. Female flowers two-flowered.
Fruits: triangular, brown hard shells in pairs in spiky, upright fruit cups with well-known oily seeds, the "beechnuts". They provide valuable edible oil.
Special features: The columnar trees are creative, invigorating elements in the landscape with their round crowns, for example the maples and the horizontal Lebanon cedar. This effect can be seen in the view from Godesburg Castle of the inner-city parks and the banks of the Rhine that were created during the Rhine Romantic period.