European Copper Beech with a Weeping Twist
Fagus sylvatica ‘pendula purpurea smorgasbord’
Well, the heat of summer has arrived so I guess it’s officially beech season. With all of Newport’s iconic beeches it’s hard to pick just one, so there will probably be a few beech posts of notable trees around the city to go with the season. First up is a mixed bag to start the process. This week’s trees frame the US flag outside the post office on the corner of Thames and Franklin Streets. I wish I knew the exact story behind these trees but I can only presume what may have happened based on how the trees are currently growing. The tree on the left is weeping beech (F. sylvatica ‘pendula’) for sure. It has a very distinct large nubby graft union and it appears to be very vigorous overgrowing the rootstock. The tree on the right is the oddity. Currently I would call it copper beech with a weeping twist.
With close examination to the tree there are a couple scenarios that could be causing this tree to appear as it does. When I look at its graft union, I do see two separate grafts, one very faint line and one glaring mass of wood bubbling outward. I suspect this tree was originally propagated as a copper beech, either cuprea or purpurea (F. sylvatica ‘purpurea’). That graft union is the faint line in the stem encircling across the entire trunk, very well done I might add. The second graft is the attachment of one branch of the green leaf weeper (F. sylvatica ‘pendula’). There is a chance that this was attached in a nursery when the tree was younger as a multi graft with the copper outgrowing the weeper, or the propagator thought they were re-grafting a previous failure that didn’t, but I highly doubt either case is true. Beeches have thin bark even when mature and they graft easily compared to other species. There is also a chance that when the trees were younger the weeper on the left spread out and happened to naturally graft itself onto the copper, trees will do this in nature.
My primary inclination is, that someone who knew they could graft a single branch onto a mature tree grabbed a piece of stem from the neighboring tree, which also happened to be a European beech, made a few cuts with a pocket knife and grafted it onto the copper. It is Newport after all, watch out for those horticulturists or even beeches for that matter, that like to party.
