Beech leaves are oval with a pointed tip, and the edge is gently wavy, with hardly a tooth. Young leaves are fringed with fine hairs.
Native, in southern England · Up to 40 m
Common beech
Fagus sylvatica · Fagaceae
Beech is a big tree with smooth, silvery grey bark on a round trunk. Its long, pointed copper buds stand out from the twig at a wide angle.
Often mistaken for hornbeam. How to tell them apart →Know it by
LeavesA wavy edge with hardly a tooth.
BarkSmooth and grey on a round trunk, with faint sideways lines.
Beech nutsPrickly husks on older trees in good years, split ones underfoot.
LeavesA wavy edge with hardly a tooth.BarkSmooth and grey on a round trunk, with faint sideways lines.Beech nutsPrickly husks on older trees in good years, split ones underfoot.Then check · BudsIn winter, long, thin copper buds with sharp points stand well out from a slender zig-zag shoot. Young trees and clipped hedges keep their dead brown leaves through the winter.
How to identify a common beech
The trunk is round, smooth and grey, with no ridges running up it. Close up there are faint sideways lines, and many beeches stay this smooth even when old.
In a good year older trees carry green, prickly husks. In autumn each one splits in four and drops three-sided brown nuts, and the empty husks lie underneath into winter.
Learn the common beech in TreelyEvery part through the year, and a short round each day until you know it.Get Treely
Every part, in photographs
Kieran Roy Powell, CC BY 4.0
Juraj Ahel, CC BY 4.0When to look
JFMAMJJASOND
In leaf
Catkins
Beech mast
In leaf: April to November · Catkins: April to May · Beech mast: May to October
Every tree on the calendar · How to identify trees in winter
Where you’ll find it
Beech woods on chalk and limestone downs, where it is often the main tree. Elsewhere it grows in parks, shelterbelts, gardens and clipped hedges. It seldom does well on wet ground.
What it’s mistaken for
Common beech or hornbeam?Both have smooth grey bark, oval pointed leaves, and dead leaves held low down in winter.Trunk surface→
Common beech or sweet chestnut?The confusion is underfoot in autumn, when both carpet the ground with prickly husks.Husk→
Common beech or English oak?Both hold some dead leaves through the winter.Outline of a leaf→
Common beech or common ash?Both are tall woodland trees with smooth grey bark when young.Older trunk→
Common beech or alder?Both have leaves with a wavy edge, in the same lowland woods.Tip of a leaf→
Common beech or hazel?Both have rounded, pointed leaves, in the same woods and hedges.Where the stems leave the ground→
- Copper beechNot another tree at all, but the same species with purple to copper leaves. Leaf. Common beech: green above, paler beneath. Copper beech: deep purple, reddish with light behind it.
In the app
There’s more of the common beech in Treely
- Every part, through the yearLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed in every season
- Its lookalikes, side by sideThe checks that settle it, part by part
- A short round each dayUntil you know the common beech on sight, from any side
- Name it from a photoA leaf, the bark or a flower, and Treely tells you which tree
Free to download.
Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.
Photographs: Juraj Ahel (CC BY 4.0), Kieran Roy Powell (CC BY 4.0), amigolimax (CC0), Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), buddyluna (CC0), steve_mcwilliam (CC0), Ewan Shilland (CC BY 4.0), Owen and Carol Fawcett. (CC BY 4.0), Jan Sheppard (CC BY 4.0), nick88 (CC0), Aaron Liston (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.