Beech Grove

The local Copper Beech prefers freshly seeped, warm, loamy earth. It needs shady areas to germinate and for the sapling to grow.
On the north side of the Komma Bridge, there is a trail that leads through a Beech grove on a slope. The Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica) can reach a height of 45 metres and live about 300 years. The name Copper Beech probably comes from the coppery colour of the autumn leaves, the colour of the buds and the red nucleation of the older trunks. Because of the large number of leaves that fall in the autumn and the dense rooting system that goes through layers of stone, the Beech tree is known as a tree that makes humus and nurtures the earth. The Beech tree needs shady areas for germination and for the saplings to grow before the light silver, pewter grey trunks reach out for the light. It is 60 years old before it bears fruit for the first time, and the wood is ready to be utilized at the age of 100. Looking at it through the eyes of a philosopher, the Beech tree can stir the imagination of the hiker, like it did the biologist and naturalist Heinrich France. He theorised that Gothic modelled itself after the arched Beech grove. He wrote: „ The branch-free bottom of the high reaching, pewter grey trunks look like the pillars of a church. The dense canopy of leaves are like the network of ribbed arches, and the outstretched branches and hanging twigs form the gothic pointed arches.“
Taste 4