This European Copper Beech is known around the campus as a special tree because of its “jumbo” proportions and copper colored summer foliage. The massive trunk on this tree measures over 20 feet in diameter and looks like a giant elephant leg. European colonists brought this tree to America in the mid-1700s and it has been a popular ornamental shade tree since that time. The beechnuts were food for prehistoric man and are still consumed today. This species is immortalized in a Sherlock Holmes tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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Fagus sylvatica, commonly called European beech, is a large deciduous tree typically growing to 50-60’ (less frequently to 100’) tall with a dense, upright-oval to rounded-spreading crown. Intolerant of wet, poorly drained soils. Difficult to transplant and does not always grow well in urban settings. Reportedly tolerates a wider range of soils than American beech.Ovate to elliptic, lustrous dark green leaves (to 4” long) have wavy mostly toothless margins and prominent parallel veins. Foliage turns golden bronze in fall.

USDA Zones 3-7