Super Fitness Health BlogThe Weeping Beech Speciman Has A Birthday
In Flushing, Long Island, within a few minutes ride of metropolitan New York, there stands a magnificent rare tree whose 170th birthday will be marked this year. It’s a Weeping Beech, and according to at least one authority, “the finest example of its kind in America, probably in the world.”
This mother of all Weeping Beeches in America towers more than 60 feet high, has a spread of 85 feet, and a trunk circumference of 14 feet. It grows in a small enclosure in what is now Washington Lane, near Parsons Boulevard. The botanical name of Weeping Beech is Fagus sylvatica pendula.
The beech’s origin, as it’s told by Frank Scott, is as picturesque as its appearance. “Baron de Mann of Beersal, Belgium,” he relates, “in the hope of impressing the carriage ladies as they swept through his private park toward his beautiful residence, ordered an avenue of beeches planted along the road. As the work was being done, he made an inspection trip and discovered the gardener about to plant a strange, drooping specimen among the straight young trees. He was furious. “Take it away, destroy it, burn it!” he shouted.
The gardener bowed and immediately dragged the tree out of the Baron’s sight, but he did not burn it. Instead he planted it in a secluded corner of the park, where he hoped the Baron would never notice it. He was curious about the freak, which proceeded to grow even more freakish, developing its own unique silvery architecture, and within a few years becoming a beech of interest to tree experts all over the world.”
From this lone specimen came the Flushing landmark. In 1830 or 1847 – the date is disputed – Samuel Parsons, a Flushing nurseryman, visited Belgium and brought back a cutting of the strange Weeping Beech.
Flushing was then little more than a country village, and slower than most suburbs about becoming citified, so the sapling grew without hindrance until it became a giant in which the whole community took pride. The tree was lovingly cared for through the years. Finally, the Flushing Garden Club worked to persuade the City of New York to buy the place, and in 1930 – when it was about 100 years old – the tree and its site were purchased, along with a little old brown-shingled house that nestles in its shadow. The club now has the use of “The House of the Weeping Beech” for its meetings.
Eventually, a small park will be made, to include the tree and the house, and also the historic Bowne House about a block away. This latter is already a public building, kept as “a national shrine to religious freedom and tolerance.” It originally belonged to John Bowne, an ancestor of the nurseryman responsible for the Weeping Beech, who spent much of his time in prison before he finally helped secure religious freedom for the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. Bowne House is open to visitors three days a week, and the Weeping Beech cannot be missed, for its huge, billowy branches tower over the surroundings.
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