A large, long-lived deciduous forest tree of temperate and montane Europe, prized for its dense domed crown, smooth grey "elephant-skin" bark, and glossy leaves that emerge silky-edged in spring and turn warm russet in fall. POWO (Kew) records it as native from France, Germany and Great Britain east to Ukraine and south to Italy, Sicily and the Balkans. It is one of the great cathedral-canopy hardwoods of Europe and an unrivalled clipped formal hedge — but it is a true forest tree, not a small-garden specimen, and the honest catch is the shade it casts: very dense, with shallow, greedy roots, so little will grow beneath an open-grown beech.