Click on the images help you identify a blue beech.
Form
Small, slow-growing, bushy tree with a spreading top of slender, crooked, or drooping branches. Height is about 30 feet, with a trunk diameter of up to 24 inches.
Bark
Bluish gray, smooth, sometimes marked with broad, dark brown horizontal bands. Trunk is fluted, with irregular ridges extending up and down.
Leaf
Leaves are simple and alternate on the stem, 2 to 4 inches long, oval, long-pointed, and double-toothed along the margins. Veins are prominent. Young leaves are pale bronze green; at maturity, they are thin, firm, and pale, dull green above and light yellow-green below. Leaves turn red or orange in autumn.
Fruit (seed)
Fruit occurs in clusters with leaflike bracts, each containing a nutlet about 1/3 inch long attached to the outside. The leaflike bract may act as a wing to aid seed distribution by wind. Fruit ripens in August.
Range
Found in moist woods, especially along streams, common throughout the southern half of the state, extending north into Itasca State Park and the White Earth Indian Reservation. Very shade-tolerant.
Wood uses
Wood is tough, close-grained, heavy, hard, and strong, light brown with thick white sapwood. Used for levers, tool handles, wooden cogs, mallets, wedges, and fuel.