Beech trees have a very distinctive trunk that makes them easy to identify. Above all, the color of the trunk but also the few knotholes and cracks make a beech unmistakable. Worth knowing about the trunk of a beech tree.

A beech can reach a trunk diameter of up to two meters

Features of the trunk of a beech

  • Size: up to 2 meters in diameter
  • Colour: first dark green to black, later silver-grey
  • Bark: very smooth with few cracks, hardly any knotholes, very thin
  • Bark: hardly any bark formation

The most important feature is the silver-grey color that makes the tree unmistakable.

Beech trunks have very thin bark, which only gets a little thicker over the years. In contrast to other forest trees such as oaks, beeches hardly ever get any bark. The bark crumbles and falls off as gray dust. It covers the soil and provides a supply of nutrients.

In the forest, beeches get a standard

In the forest, the beech forms a standard. The crown is high up. A prerequisite is low planting around the beech. The foliage from other trees must shade the trunk.

Since the bark is very thin, a free-standing beech gets sunburned very quickly. For this reason, the crown of the tree is much lower in the case of individually standing trees.

Identify the age of the beech by the trunk

If you want to know how old a beech tree is, measure the trunk at a height of one meter. Multiply the result by 0.6 and you get the probable age of the beech. The result is even more accurate if you take two measurements, namely at a height of one meter and at a height of 1.5 meters. Calculate the mean and also multiply it by 0.6.

In the case of very old trees that have long since grown to maturity, the trunk no longer becomes thicker. Here the age can only be narrowed down more precisely on the basis of location and historical descriptions. Annual rings, as they occur on other tree trunks, are only very slightly pronounced on the beech.

tips

Beech wood naturally has a slightly reddish tinge. If it is steamed, the wood gets the red tone that is particularly valued in furniture making. It is not as hard as that of the hornbeam.

Category:

Trees