Purple Beech
Fagus sylvatica ‘Atropunicea’ Purple Beech is
one of the best-known genetic mutations of the European Beech. It
has been in cultivation since 1680. This tree at Planting Fields was
originally one of a pair that grew at Mrs. Coe’s childhood estate
in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. A barge carried them across the Long
Island Sound to Oyster Bay where a team of seventy-two horses brought
the trees to this site. Telephone wires had to be taken down along
the way because of the trees’ large size. One tree did not survive
transplanting, but the other has flourished in this spot since 1915.
