The Copper Beech of Frick Park

In a park of native green woodland, this beech is the wrong colour on purpose. A copper beech is a form of the European beech whose leaves come out purple instead of green, and in Frick Park that one trait is enough to pick it out from everything growing around it. Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission named it a Remarkable Tree in the program's opening round, in March 2023, as a Tree of a Kind, the commission's category for trees unique in appearance, origin or growth. It was listed for what it looks like, not for its size, and no measurement was published. The colour moves through the year. The leaves open a glossy purple in spring, darken through the summer, and turn copper before they fall in late autumn. In winter, with the leaves gone, it is a smooth grey beech like any other, which makes that the one season you could walk straight past it. The route in is the one the program gives: through the gatehouse at Reynolds and Homewood Streets in Point Breeze. The city's map point for the tree sits on Tranquil Trail, so the path leads you to it. Frick Park is large, public and free, and the sawtooth oak in Westinghouse Park, another tree on the city's list, is about 700 metres away. Nobody has published when this beech was planted, or by whom. If you know, tell us.