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An upright beech was planted in the northeast corner of the park in September of 2025. It was quite the sapling, about twenty feet tall at planting. More on the European beech at Wikipedia here.
Columnar European beech in the northeast corner of the park on September 26, 2025, one day after planting.
The tower of North x Northwest is in the background.
When this tree was planted by the City, we were told that it was a Fagus sylvatica 'Riversii.' When planted it had a fastigiate form, i.e. columnar, so it may be a 'Fastigiata' cultivar instead of 'Riversii.' Its growth form will reveal its true self. The 'Riversii' will have a globular form to its canopy. The branches on a fastigiate cultivar tend to grow upwards in parallel to the trunk. Many species have fastigiate cultivars; the beech cultivar is also called Dawyck beech, named for the Dawyck Botanic Gardens in Scotland where it was developed around 1850. Beeches in the open typically have a widely spreading canopy. Although either cultivar will grow to 40 to 60 feet, the canopy of the fastigiate will spread only about ten feet.
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Fagus sylvatica factoids:​
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this tree has the smooth gray bark of other beeches and makes for easy identification;
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the flowers are monoecious (both male and female on the same plant) but relatively inconspicuous. Half-inch nuts develop from the female flowers;
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the genus name fagus means "beech." The species name sylvatica means woods, like the -sylvania in Pennsylvania;
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our beech is the European species. The American species, Fagus grandifloria, has longer narrower leaves with distinctly serrated leaf edges. The European beech has purple-leafed cultivars, whereas the American species does not. The park lost a purple beech either to beech anthracnose (a fungus) or beech leaf disease (caused by a nematode) a few years back. Hopefully our new tree will not become infected.
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Botany 101 Bonus
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The maple trees in the Park withdraw all the green chlorophyll from their leaves, leaving the anthocyanins and other pigments in the beautifully colored leaves as those leaves separate from the tree and fall to the ground. Other trees are more stingy, and withdraw all the pigments from the leaves, so that dull brown leaves fall to the ground. Still others, like our beech and oak, hold on to those dead brown leaves over the winter.
Marcescence is the scientific term for the retention of dead plant organs, usually leaves, that normally are shed. This occurs especially in the young trees, and you will notice that there are more dead leaves on our young beech than on our mature red oak, and more near the bottom of the tree than at the top. Why is this trait seen in the beech and the oak? They are related; they both belong to the same taxonomic family (Fagaceae), and no other tree in the Park is in this family.
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It is not clear what advantage marcescence might provide to the survival of the tree. Theories are that it may discourage herbivores like deer or that it is allows the leaves to fall and act as fertilizer in the spring when the new trees are breaking seed. It is almost like a compromise between being an evergreen with leaf retention through the winter and being deciduous with leaf fall in autumn.
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