LEAVES FROM A NATURE NOTEBOOK: MAKING TREE HAY

Standing under the beech tree, looking up into the roof of blue shade; the density of the tree’s canopy blocking out the day’s sunshine. Cave-like. In late spring, the beech, along with the lime, is the parasol tree, casting glad cooling shade for the weary walker, the picnicker, and doubtless once upon a time for persecuted outlaws, our Robin Hoods.

No British tree, not even oak, has such presence as beech; a single beech tree, such as this one in the copse is sufficient in herself to create the quintessence of beechwood: the sense of entering a churchy, sacred space; the immense grey pillars, that vaulted ceiling, the mystried gloom. Vita Sackville-West knew this, writing about the beeches at Knole, ‘Your stone-grey columns a cathedral nave/Processional above the earth’s brown glory!’ Oak is the hail-fellow King of the Wood, beech the Ice-Queen. Oak is one trope for Britain, hearty, rustic and guileless; the smooth-boled beech is the alternative Britain, the shadow-self, secret, minimalist, spiritual. Oh yes, and standing under a beech causes one to philosophise even when one is working, as I am this morning, lopping select lower branches with long handled pruners to make ‘tree hay.’