1. FAGUS, Linn.
Trees or rarely shrubs. Leaves evergreen or deciduous; stipules caducous. Flowers monœcious. Males: In pendulous few- or many-flowered heads or solitary; bracts scale-like, caducous. Perianth campanulate, 4–6-lobed; lobes imbricate. Stamens 8–16 or more; filaments filiform, exserted; anthers oblong, obtuse or sagittate at the base, loculicidally dehiscent. Females: Minute, 2–4 sessile within a 4-lobed involucre composed of numerous scales grown together at the base. Perianth-tube trigonous, adnate to the ovary; limb shortly 3–5-lobed. Ovary inferior, 3-celled; styles 3, linear; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous from the top. Fruiting involucres enlarged and hardened, more or less clothed externally with scales or prickles, ultimately splitting almost to the base into 4 (rarely 3) valves. Nuts enclosed within the involucre, trigonous, 3-celled; cells 1-seeded. Seed pendulous; cotyledons plaited.
A genus of about 18 species, found in the temperate and colder regions of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. It is now often divided into two separate genera: one, Fagus proper, including the beeches of the Northern Hemisphere, which have comparatively large leaves, many-flowered male heads or catkins, and large fruiting involucres; the other, Nothofagus, comprising the species from the Southern Hemisphere, in all of which the leaves are small, the male heads 1–3-flowered, and the fruiting involucres very small indeed.
| A. Fruiting involucres clothed with recurved linear processes. | |
| Leaves ⅓–½ in., ovate-rhomboid, coriaceous, doubly crenate | 1. F. Menziesii. |
| B. Fruiting involucres with flat transverse lamellæ. | |
| Leaves ¾–1½ in,, broadly ovate, obtuse, thin, veined, pubescent, deeply serrate | 2. F. fusca. |
| Leaves ¾–1 in., oblong, apiculate, entire or obscurely toothed towards the tip | 3. F. apiculata. |
| Leaves ⅔–¾ in., ovate, acute, entire, glabrous above, fulvous beneath. Involucre 4-valved | 4. F. Blairii. |
| Leaves ¼–¾ in., oblong, obtuse, entire, glabrous above, white beneath. Involucre 3-valved | 5. F. Solandri. |
| Leaves ⅙–⅔ in., ovate, acute, rounded or cordate at the base, glabrous above, white beneath. Involucre 3-valved | 6. F. cliffortioides. |
1. F. Menziesii, Hook. f. in Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 652.—A tall forest-tree 60–80 ft. or even 100 ft. high; trunk 2–5 ft. diam. or more; bark white and silvery, especially in young trees; branchlets clothed with fulvous pubescence. Leaves evergreen, shortly petiolate, ⅓–½ in. long, broadly ovate-deltoid or rhomboid or almost orbicular, obtuse, shortly unequally cuneate at the base, thick and coriaceous, rigid, glabrous except the petiole, irregularly doubly crenate; margins thickened; stipules membranous, reddish, pubescent. Male flowers solitary, on short curved peduncles in the lower axils of the branchlets. Perianth 4–6-lobed. Stamens 6–12. Female involucres in the upper axils, 2–3-flowered. Fruiting involucres ¼–⅓ in. long, faintly pubescent; lobes with 5–7 trans-
