Hi all, I know it is a very difficult task but could anyone help me identifying this oak-like plant found on a book cover (the Italian edition of Garden Trees Handbook by Alan Toogood)? Thanks in advance.
Much less likely to be planted in an open situation like that! Beech is a very traditional tree for open planting in this manner.
Nope, that would have visibly larger leaves. Any reason why you want it to be other than Fagus sylvatica?? That was, and still remains, by far the highest probability.
When this was first posted I thought of that one also, but nobody can say for sure using just this picture.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bavariabuche_rot.jpg I believe this is a winter photograph of the very tree in question. It appears that this tree resides in Germany. So. Michael is VERy correct yet again.
A better pic of the same specimen, called Bavaria-Buche (the Bavaria Beech), near Pondorf, Germany. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/19951440 Unfortunately, this ancient and noble tree doesn't exist anymore.
how sad. clearly it was enjoyed by many, many people. it's life lingers on our pages. Did it die a stately death?
My German is not very good, but I will try to summarize it. In recent decades it has been attacked by a parasite (a fungus called Kretzschmaria deusta), it has been fertilized in an excessive and wrong manner, besides many children and visitors have compacted the soil too much and weakened the branches by climbing it. At the end the tree has fallen down; however many new beeches are born around the fallen tree and maybe one of them will become a new big tree. Images and story of the Bavaria-Buche (in German)
