Beech, common name for a family of woody flowering plants that often dominate temperate forests, and for its representative genus. The beech family contains some 7 genera and nearly 800 species. Many of its members—including oaks, chestnuts, and beeches—are important sources of timber, food, and other useful materials.

The flowers in the beech groups are usually individually inconspicuous, with bractlike floral tubes (perianths); female and male flowers are borne separately in dense clusters called spikes or, if pendulous, catkins. The male catkins are often conspicuous in the spring, when they shed their pollen, as in oaks. A unique feature of the family is the cupule, a cuplike, often scale-covered structure that surrounds the single-seeded nut. The cap of an acorn is a good example of a cupule.

Members of the beech family are trees or, rarely, shrubs. The leaves are usually deciduous (falling in the autumn), but the live oak of the southeastern coastal plain and the California scrub oak of California and Baja California, for example, are evergreen, as are some other species.

Beeches are distributed widely in North America and Eurasia and extend through the Malay Archipelago to eastern Australia and New Zealand. They also occur in the Andes of southern South America. Members of the family are conspicuous or dominant in the hardwood forests of both the northern and southern hemispheres.

The beech genus itself is a group of about ten species of deciduous trees native to the North Temperate Zone. The pale, smooth bark and elongated winter buds are characteristic features. The American beech is the only species native to the United States, where it occurs extensively east of the Mississippi River. The European beech was introduced into North America in Colonial times and is often found in parks. The copper beech, with late-appearing, copper-colored leaves, and the weeping beech, with hanging branches, are cultivated varieties of the European beech. The fruits of beech, called beechnuts or beechmast, contain nearly 50 percent oil and are used as pig feed in Europe. The wood is extensively used in furniture and flooring. Old-fashioned clothespins are also made of beech.

Beeches are placed in an order with three other families. The southern beech family contains a single genus confined to the southern hemisphere. Its some 35 species include both deciduous and evergreen trees. Southern beeches are exploited for timber and indirectly as food: Fungi that grow on some are eaten, and the wood of others, partially rotted, is used as cattle feed. The other families of the order are the birch family and a one-genus family of shrubs and trees restricted to Queensland and northeastern Australia.

Scientific classification:Beeches make up the family Fagaceae, of the order Fagales. The American beech is classified as Fagus grandifolia and the European beech as Fagus sylvatica. The southern beech family is Nothofagaceae, and its single genus is Nothofagus. The birch family is Betulaceae, and the one-genus family is Balanopaceae.