The Ladder Beech

Two of this beech's branches have grown into each other and welded shut, which is how it got its name. Foresters call the effect anastomosis: where two limbs press together for long enough, the bark between them wears away, the living tissue underneath meets, and the two pieces of wood carry on as one. Beeches do it more readily than most trees, and on this one the result reads as rungs across a gap, so the register lists it as the hetre echelle, the ladder beech. Everything else about it is ordinary, which is rather the point. It is 75 to 90 years old, not old for a beech, and just under three metres round measured at the foot of the trunk. It stands where two forest roads meet near the carrefour du rossignol, in the middle of Roumare, and it was already half a century old when the December 1999 storm went through this forest and took some of its bigger neighbours with it. Park before the barrier on the Etienne forest road and walk in. There is a panel on the trail, and no gate, ticket or opening hours anywhere in this forest.