EUROPEAN BEECH TREES OF MARIEMONT, BELGIUM

 

 

Stunning capture of European Beech trees in Mariemont, Belgium. Mariemont, also Morlanwelz-Mariemont, now in the municipality of Morlanwelz, Hainaut, Belgium, is a former royal estate and hunting park created in the 16th century by Mary of Hungary, from whom it took its name. The royal residences formerly on the site have long since been destroyed.
The estate’s last private owner, Raoul Warocque (1870-1917), made it over to the Belgian state. Today it is a public park, containing among other amenities the Musee royal de Mariemont. [Source]

Fagus sylvatica, the European Beech or Common Beech, is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae. The natural range extends from southern Sweden (with some isolated locations in southern Norway) to central Italy, west to France, southern England, northern Portugal, and central Spain, and east to northwest Turkey, where it intergrades with the Oriental Beech (F. orientalis), which replaces it further east.

It is a large tree, capable of reaching heights of up to 49 m (160 ft) tall and 3 m (10 ft) trunk diameter, though more typically 25–35 m (80–115 ft) tall and up to 1.5 m (5 ft) trunk diameter. A 10-year-old sapling will stand about 4 m (13 ft) tall. It has a typical lifespan of 150 to 200 years, though sometimes up to 300 years. [Source]

 

via Wikimedia Commons