[1] The subgenus Englerianae is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark.

The European beech Fagus sylvatica is the most commonly cultivated species, yielding a utility timber used for furniture construction, flooring and engineering purposes, in plywood, and household items.

The European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is the most commonly cultivated, although few important differences are seen between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape.

The husk can have a variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the character of which is, in addition to leaf shape, one of the primary ways beeches are differentiated.

Species of subgenus Engleriana are found only in East Asia, and are notably distinct from species of subgenus Fagus in that these beeches are low-branching trees, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark and a substantially different nucleome (nuclear DNA), especially in noncoding, highly variable gene regions such as the spacers of the nuclear-encoded ribosomal RNA genes (ribosomal DNA).

[4][5] Further differentiating characteristics include the whitish bloom on the underside of the leaves, the visible tertiary leaf veins, and a long, smooth cupule-peduncle.

[2] While the status of F. okamotoi remains uncertain, the most recent systematic treatment based on morphological and genetic data confirmed a third species, F. multinervis, endemic to Ulleungdo, a South Korean island in the Sea of Japan.

Research suggests that the first representatives of the modern-day genus were already present in the Paleocene of Arctic North America (western Greenland[9]) and quickly radiated across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with a first diversity peak in the Miocene of northeastern Asia.

[13] The oldest fossils that can be assigned to the beech lineage are 81–82 million years old pollen from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming, United States.

They are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, as well as Argentina and Chile (principally Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego).

[25] F. multinervis F. engleriana F. japonica F. grandifolia F. mexicana F. orientalis F. sylvatica F. hayatae F. crenata F. longipetiolata F. lucida Numerous species have been named globally from the fossil record spanning from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene.

Beech is widely planted for hedging and in deciduous woodlands, and mature, regenerating stands occur throughout mainland Britain at elevations below about 650 m (2,100 ft).

In Denmark and Scania at the southernmost peak of the Scandinavian peninsula, southwest of the natural spruce boundary, it is the most common forest tree.

The most northern known naturally growing (not planted) beech trees are found in a small grove north of Bergen on the west coast of Norway.

Research has linked the establishment of beech stands in Scandinavia and Germany with cultivation and fire disturbance, i.e. early agricultural practices.

Other areas which have a long history of cultivation, Bulgaria for example, do not exhibit this pattern, so how much human activity has influenced the spread of beech trees is as yet unclear.

Nowadays, they are amongst the last pure beech forests in Europe to document the undisturbed postglacial repopulation of the species, which also includes the unbroken existence of typical animals and plants.

[37] The American beech (Fagus grandifolia) occurs across much of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, with a disjunct sister species in Mexico (F. mexicana).

Before the Pleistocene Ice Age, it is believed to have spanned the entire width of the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific but now is confined to the east of the Great Plains.

F. grandifolia tolerates hotter climates than European species but is not planted much as an ornamental due to slower growth and less resistance to urban pollution.

It most commonly occurs as an overstory component in the northern part of its range with sugar maple, transitioning to other forest types further south such as beech-magnolia.

Slats of beech wood are washed in caustic soda to leach out any flavour or aroma characteristics and are spread around the bottom of fermentation tanks for Budweiser beer.

It weighs about 720 kg per cubic metre and is widely used for furniture construction, flooring, and engineering purposes, in plywood and household items, but rarely as a decorative wood.

Beech litter raking as a replacement for straw in animal husbandry was an old non-timber practice in forest management that once occurred in parts of Switzerland in the 17th century.