In Praise of Beech Trees

Bernard Dod

I love beech trees too. I have long thought that trees are the most beautiful things in the world - trees and clouds, but especially trees, and most especially beech trees.

On a bleak January afternoon, with the wind biting from the east and the sky a sullen grey blanket, the world feels harsh and unlovely, but the silhouette of the lone beech tree on the ridge is majestic and defiant. For all its strength, it is a perfect shape; the natural geometry of growth has balanced all its parts, from the solid buttressed trunk to the intricate tracery of its crown. At first glance the silhouette seems perfectly symmetrical, but when you look at it again you see infinite variation. No two elements quite match each other, but the ever-dividing branches balance each other out, interweaving in complex and increasingly delicate patterns, yet still creating a simple and harmonious whole. Framed against the cold grey sky, this solitary beech is to me a symbol of defiant life, simple and strong, yet also fragile and subtle, waiting patiently for the time to reassert itself.

The grandeur of the solitary specimen beech that has survived and triumphed is rivalled, or even eclipsed, by the spectacle of the great beech woods that cover the Chiltern Hills. Here in the early spring the strengthening sun slants through the canopy to warm the cool, smooth trunks of the trees. There is no undergrowth, and a long vista of tall and slender columns opens up along the sides of the valley, all crowned by a flickering tracery of newly opening leaves. They say that the Gothic cathedrals were inspired by trees, and standing in a beech wood you can well believe it: the grey columns, the tracery of arches and windows, the light streaming in from above - the resemblance is more than just visual, for both inspire the same feelings of awe and reverence.

By May the leaves are fully formed. A young beech leaf must be one of nature's greatest marvels - soft, pale and downy, almost translucent with its own delicate tracery of veins, and so fragile-looking that one feels the heat of the sun could melt it, or the merest breeze tear it to shreds. In some favoured parts of the Chilterns the pale, dappled green of these leaves is counterbalanced by a soft carpet of bluebells as far as the eye can see: a perfect harmony of colours.

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Gradually changing its pale green coat for the dark and dense canopy of high summer, the beech wood provides a cool, quiet and mysterious retreat from the heat of the sun, and the towering grey columns of nature's cathedral can be seen stretching into the distance, for there is still none of the tangle of undergrowth that makes ordinary woods impenetrable. And with the coming of autumn the crown breaks up into a riot of yellow, gold, tawny and brown. Other trees may have bolder and more flamboyant autumn colours, but none matches the beech for richness and warmth -every possible tint of brown and gold blending in harmony. Through the whole cycle of the seasons the beech's strength, colours and beauty of form never fail.

All trees are beautiful. They inspire us, and I can't help thinking that to admire a tree is to come close to the origin and core of our aesthetic sense. The eye and the mind respond to order and symmetry. They also tire of excessive and static regularity, and are intrigued by variety and movement. Trees (and also waves and clouds) provide an endlessly satisfying combination of all these qualities, and although I cannot prove it, I am ready to believe that close communion with these natural forms has literally shaped our sense of what is beautiful.

Our ancestors worshipped trees. I'm not surprised; in my way I do too. Contemplating a majestic tree moves me to something that must be akin to idolatry. We are not nowadays accustomed to using religious language to describe our feelings, but maybe it is only the language and not the deep impulse that has changed. If I were to nominate the shrine and godhead of my religion, it would undoubtedly be the lonely beech defying the elements on the ridge above the village where I used to live.

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