It sometimes grows from seed and has formed colonies in Sweden (where it is known as "Vresbok"), Denmark ("Vrange bøge"), Germany ("Süntel-Buchen"), France ("Faux de Verzy") and Italy ("Alberi serpente", nel Monte Pollino).

A well known example of this tree species stands today on the Eidinghauser hill and is named "Krause Buche" ("Ruffle Beech") due to its striking growth.

[2] Smaller groups of older dwarf beeches still exist in France (where they are known as Hêtre tortillard), Denmark (Vrange bøge), and Sweden (Vresbok).

[4] The property, which was initially leased by the Bad Münder local branch, was bought by the Heimatbund Niedersachsen on 27 September 2010.

The sustainable nature protection project serves exclusively to preserve and reproduce this rare tree species.

The horizontal, static unfavorable growth seems to accelerate the breakup of old rotten trees, so that dwarf beeches never reach 300 years of age.

The greatest difference to the normal form is in the peculiar growth of the roots, trunk, and branches of the dwarf beech.

The trees have been described as twisted, snaked, corkscrewed, kinked, kneed, zig-zagged, or simply stunted growth.

The growth of the dwarf beech also depends on location, which affects competition, shade, nutrients, wind, and so on.

As a result, individual roots come to the surface more often and form basal shoots that grow into new, mostly long, undivided, and snake-growing stems.

The flat-crowned tree of the Tabuliformis (table beech) type in the Flora Botanical Garden in Cologne described by Gerd Krüssmann in 1939 in the Messages of the German Dendrological Society (Deutsche Dendrologische Gesellschaft) is one such unique example.

When dwarf and weeping beeches deviate greatly from their usual, even knowledgeable dendrologists have difficulty with proper classification.

The nicest looking trees were reproduced almost exclusively, which could lead to a reduction of the dwarf beech's gene pool in the future.

When planting young dwarf beeches, one should take into account their very slow growth rates (5 to 10 cm per year) and their large space requirements.

The dwarf beech and its low, almost horizontally growing branches that hang down to the ground covers a circle of up to 25 m in diameter with its crown.

Some noteworthy dwarf beeches which have reached a great age or have shown a particularly beautiful growth have become well-known and impressive natural monuments, and have also made their way into relevant literature.

These include: The most well-known dwarf beech was the "Tilly-Buche" (1739–1994) near Raden on the Süntel, which was greatly influential to the local area and today is represented on the coat of arms of Auetal.

Smaller beech trees are not more noticed than comparable forms of corkscrew hazels, acacias, larches, or willows.

In the Semper forest park, in the north of Lietzow on the island of Rügen, there are ten dwarf beeches that form a dome-like grove.

"All of the trunks have grown more or less crooked that out of the entire stock, in my opinion, not one four foot length piece of straight wood could be split, and they have a crown formation which is similar to the weeping ash.

By the time Tilemann published his 1842 report with four drawings in 1844, the last dwarf beech forest near Hülsede was already cleared.

A 1908 report by A. Oppermann with over 100 photos of the "Renkbuchen" ("Tangle beech"),[10] an illustrated natural history presentation of the last specimens growing in the Süntel by W. Wehrhan from 1902, and a description of the "Tilly-Buche" by Cl.

Professor Friedrich Lange studied the morphology of the strange tree from 1966 to 1974 in Bad Münder and at the University of Göttingen.