W15 - Fagus Sylvatica-Deschampsia Flexuosa Woodland

Summary

Synonymy

Chalk plateau beechwoods (c) Watt & Tansley 1930; Beechwoods on heath Watt & Tansley 1930; Beech associes, sere C Watt 19346; Beech consociation, sere C Watt 19346; Fagetum arenicolumlericetosum Tansley 1939; Beech-Oak-Birch Association, types 1 & 2 p.p. McNeill 1961; Beech-oak-holly woods Peterken & Tubbs 1965 p.p.; Beechwood Rackham 1980 p.p.; Beech stand types 8A & 8B Peterken 1981; Woodland plot type 17 Bunce 1982 p.p.

Constant species

Fagus sylvatica (Deschampsia flexuosa, Pteridium aquilinum, Dicranella heteromalla, Mnium hornum).

Physiognomy

The Fagus sylvatica-Deschampsia flexuosa woodland is the third of the forest types in which beech attains great pre-eminence in Britain but, as in its counterpart at the opposite edaphic extreme, the Fagus-Mercurialis woodland, beech does not make such generally good growth here, nor is it so overwhelmingly dominant, as in the Fagus-Rubus woodland. Thus, though beech is the most frequent tree in this community as a whole and often the most abundant component of individual stands, the mean canopy height is usually less than 20 m and the trees are quite commonly of manifestly poor quality, sometimes growing crookedly and generally attaining no more than quality class III (Watt 19346, Brown 1953, McNeill 1961, Rackham 1980). Coppiced stands are very rare (though they may have been more abundant in the past) and the usual structure is high forest, though signs of a variety of different treatments are widespread. Some tracts are obviously of planted origin, with morphologically-similar trees disposed in more or less even spacings (Watt 19346, Brown 1953, 1964) and, in the Chilterns, where this community is represented among the plateau woodlands, a preponderance of smaller, poorly-grown individuals sometimes indicates long treatment under the selection system (Brown 1953,1964, Peterken 1981). Other stands have been treated as woodpasture, as in Burnham Beeches (Tansley 1939), in Epping Forest (Paulson 1926, Tansley 1939) and parts of the New Forest (Peterken & Tubbs 1965, Tubbs 1968) and, in some of these places, magnificent pollard beeches survive. Even in stands which have been more actively managed, it is sometimes still possible to discern variation between individual trees and their groupings which can give some clue of the original development of the woodland by sub-spontaneous invasion with muchbranched pioneers and unbranched followers (Watt 19346) or clumped age-classes related to waves of colonisation (Peterken & Tubbs 1965, Tubbs 1968).