Beech wood is superior to all other species in hardness, so the ancient druids considered it a symbol of inviolability and strength. According to the horoscope of this people, the beech tree governs the winter solstice. It falls on December, approximately on the 21st or 22nd day, depending on the features of the year. The mission of people born on these days is to establish and maintain a clear order.
The beech tree in the plant world is a relative of another strong man with whom Russian folklore likes to compare strong and hardy people - oak. The opinion of the Czechs on this issue is slightly different. For them, the mighty and slender beech tree is the standard of strength and beauty. And there is no need to argue with this.
Let's pay attention to the height and width that the beech tree reaches. The photo attached to this article demonstrates its greatness well. Suffice it to say that it reaches a height of forty meters, and it can expand over its long life, lasting up to four hundred years and more, up to two meters or more. Its trunk thickens constantly, regardless of age. Whereinit continues to grow upwards until the age of eighty, and maturity comes at sixty, when fruiting begins. True, in those cases when a beech tree grows separately, it begins to show the properties associated with the continuation of the genus earlier. Then his nuts can be seen at forty or even twenty.
They ripen in prickly boxes. The seeds are triangular in shape. Their taste is very pleasant, reminiscent of cedar kernels. Only forest dwellers know that beech nuts should be eaten with caution. Their seed is covered with a thin film containing poison, so they are collected in the forest and carried home, where, after a simple heat treatment - roasting in a hot frying pan - they eat them on both cheeks, because this is a highly nutritious and he althy product. Plus, they're delicious!
If we are already talking about reproduction, then it is appropriate to add that the first flowers on the beech appear at the end of spring. The male flowers open first. Women - in about a week. Beech pollen is sticky and therefore heavy. She is picked up by gusts of wind and transferred to the pistils of female flowers. After pollination, the nuts develop slowly, until autumn. The tree then carefully strews the ground with its foliage. And on this litter sheds fruits. And from above it covers them, like a blanket, with a new layer of fallen leaves. So nuts are preserved from frost and winter in comfortable conditions.
In the Middle Ages in Western Europe there were often difficult and hungry times. Saved people from death beech nuts. Therefore, a well-known scientist with a worldwide reputationCarl Linnaeus called this tree "Feeding" (Fagus) in his works. And it is right. After all, the beech nourishes almost all the inhabitants of the wild. Thanks to its nuts in winter and early spring, when food is difficult, not only all small rodents, such as bunnies, squirrels and wild boars, but also roe deer, elks and bears are saved from death.
The powerful crown of this tree forms a deciduous cover covering an area of a thousand square meters or more, which provides excellent protection from dust and gas pollution, as well as abundant air humidification, ensuring cleanliness and order in the living environment.
