I love trees, but they don’t usually lend themselves to casual iPhone capture like smaller plants and flowers. Thought it’s not a flower, I’ll make an exception for tonight’s advent post: Fagus sylvatica var. hetrerophylla ‘Aspleniifolia,’ or the fern-leaved beech. This particular specimen grows at Bath Botanical Gardens, and was photographed on a visit there this August.
I was wandering the gardens when I saw the small tree, above, and was instantly intrigued by its beautiful foliage and distinctive glow. I thought it was a perfect small tree until I walked a few steps further and saw:
What I had mistaken for a sapling was actually just a layered branch of this much-larger, majestic beech.
My husband reminded me tonight that our encounter in Bath wasn’t my first exposure to this tree. There is actually one growing at the Edinburgh Botanics, and on one of our school walk-arounds our beloved professor Phil Lusby stood under it and remarked that it was beautiful. “It’s as if it produces its own light,” he said. My iPhone photos may not be the best at conveying this characteristic, but what he said is true. It is a remarkable tree.