Faux de Verzy
A Fau of Verzy is either a dwarf beech (Fagus sylvatica variety tortuosa), or a dwarf oak tree or a dwarf chestnut tree. These grow in the forest of Verzy, 25 km south of Reims in France. In this forest are less than a thousand dwarf beeches, some dozen dwarf oaks and some dwarf chestnuts (see Biology below), but this article speaks in the main about dwarf beeches.
Etymology and toponymy
The word fau designated the beech in Old French (the plural was faux); this word came from the Latin fagus, now the French word for beech is hêtre that has a Germanic origin. These trees therefore give the name, Les Faux de Verzy, to the touristic area located in France 25 km south of Reims in Marne where the world’s largest concentration of dwarf beeches stands with about a thousand trees.
The dwarf beeches (The faux)
They are not more than 4 or 5 metres high (12 or 15 feet). In summer, they spread their leaves like heavy sun umbrellas; some looking like leaf igloos. In winter, their tortuous shape can be seen naked: trunks and branches are crooked, bent, twisted and pendulous to the ground. Such dwarf beeches are also known in other places: in Germany (in the Süntel area, not far from Hanover), in Sweden (at Dalby Söderskogs near Malmö, not far from the northern limit for this species), in Denmark, and in an other place in France (in Lorraine), etc...Nobody knows whether these plantings have the same origin or not. But there are too few such beeches in these two places to feel confident about the future of their population. The situation is healthier around the dwarf beeches of Verzy, especially now that the construction of a pathway enables visitors to admire them without making harmful trampling on the ground over the fragile roots. A fenced reserve also enables the preservation of a part of the population. With more than 1,000 dwarf beeches, the National Forest of Verzy is the world's principal reserve of dwarf beeches. Among them, the most specific ones were given a name inspired by their peculiar shapes:
•the umbrella Fau,
•the Fau of the bride,
•the ox-head Fau,
•the Fau of the Young Lady (the legend says that Joan of Arc came and had a rest in this forest).
This area has been listed at a national level since 1932.
Pictures gallery
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A fau of Verzy in winter
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... in spring
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... in autumn
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... in summer
History
A mass of speculation, from far-fetched to more credible, but often scientifically unfounded, have been put forward to explain the origin of the Faux of Verzy. It is known that there were already some “Faux” in the forest of Verzy thanks to old books written in the abbey of St-Basle during the 6th century.
The monks may have increased their number by layering and then by transplanting them in the forest to make a kind of “botanical garden”. These monks were great travellers and, according to Y. Bernard they may have brought back a treasured young plant from an eastern area that they were passing through for evangelizing.
A dwarf beech called ‘’abre des Dames’’ (abre standing for arbre meaning tree, and Dame meaning fairy at that time) which together gives ‘’the tree of the fairies’’ stood in the south of Domrémy, the native village of Joan of Arc. This beech was already one hundred years old at that time; it was venerated because of its beauty and was the subject of rural worship: a procession used to walk there every year to chase away the bad spirits.
During Joan of Arc’s trial of rehabilitation (1450-1456), 11 witnesses spoke about this very tree as if it was an essential piece of information.
It was said that when going with Charles VII of France to the abbey of St Basle, Joan of Arc climbed up in the branches of a fau at Verzy and sat down . True or not, the story shows the swarm of legends which had surrounded these dwarf beeches that still are a mystery for the scientists.