Love letters

Beautifully pale and smooth, the bark of young and middle-aged beech trees has long attracted anyone wanting to inscribe the initials of their Valentine. Scarring is not great for the trees, albeit seldom fatal. But as the bark ages, it is less suitable for romantic graffiti, developing myriad cracks, lumps and bumps – pollarded specimens, in particular, become wonderfully gnarly. Beech is not a very long-lived tree, however. Any individuals that reach 250 years may be considered veterans, and relatively few live into their third century.

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Find out how to identify different trees from their bark at

bit.ly/identifytreebark