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Carpinus betulus
Also called Caucasian Hornbeam, Common Hornbeam, Hornbeam
European hornbeam is a deciduous tree in the birch family, native to Europe and western Asia, widely planted as a shade tree, street tree, and clipped hedge. It tolerates hard pruning and regrows well from cut stumps.
Carpinus betulus, the European or common hornbeam, is a species of tree in the birch family Betulaceae, native to Western Asia and central, eastern, and southern Europe, including southern England. It requires a warm climate for good growth, and occurs only at elevations up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). It grows in mixed stands with oak, and in some areas beech, and is also a common tree in scree forests. Hornbeam was also known as yoke elm. Together with Carpinus orientalis and Carpinus austrobalcanica, it is one of the three hornbeams found in Europe.
Carpinus betulus is widely cultivated as an ornamental tree, for planting in gardens and parks throughout north west Europe. Because it stands up well to cutting back and has dense foliage, it has been much used in landscape gardening, mainly as tall hedges and for topiary. It was the classic tree used in French formal gardens for hedges in bosquets, as in the Gardens of Versailles, and in their English equivalent, the garden wilderness.
There are several cultivars, notably 'Fastigiata' or 'Pyramidalis', a fastigiate tree when young, which has become a popular urban street tree in the United Kingdom and other countries. 'Frans Fontaine' is a similar fastigiate cultivar. Both the species C. betulus and the cultivar 'Fastigiata' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
In England, trees appear to prefer soils with a pH from 3.6 to 4.6 but tolerate up to 7.6. They are found on soils with moderate clay content and avoid soils with particularly high or low clay content.
American hornbeam · Japanese Hornbeam · Loose Flower Hornbeam · Oriental Hornbeam · Turczaninow's Hornbeam
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Carpinus betulus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
