American beech

This 18 to 24 m tall tree is easy to recognize year-round, with its smooth, silvery bark mottled with diamond-shaped patches. It has slender shiny twigs. The slender buds are about 2 cm long and the leaves, 5 to 15 cm long. They are leathery with parallel veins ending in a tooth. The leaves on young trees sometimes remain on the tree all winter. The fruit is a bristly husk opening into four chambers when ripe. It contains two smooth brown pyramid-shaped nuts.