Beech houses, and log cabins. Beech wood is used for the stocks of military rifles when traditionally preferred woods such as walnut are scarce or unavailable or as a lower-cost alternative. The fruit of the beech tree, known as beechnuts or mast, is found in small burrs that drop from the tree in autumn. They are small, roughly triangular and edible, with a bitter, astringent, or in some cases, mild and nut-like taste. They have a high enough fat content that they can be pressed for edible oil. Fresh from the tree, beech leaves in spring are a fine salad vegetable,
English Lowlands beech forests include the Devil's bolete and hedgehog mushroom. At the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago, the area's ecosystem was characterised by a largely treeless tundra. Pollen studies have shown that this was replaced by a taiga of birch, and then pine, before their replacement in turn (c. 4500 BC) by most of the species of tree encountered today - including, by 4000 BC, the beech, which seems to have been introduced from mainland Europe. This was used as a source of flour, ground from the triangular nutlets contained in the "mast", or fruit of the beech, after