Beech cupules. 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. The nuts are edible, though bitter (though not nearly as bitter as acorns) with a high tannin content, and are called beechnuts or beechmast. The name of the tree (Latin "fagus", whence the species name; cognate with English "beech") is of Indo-European origin, and played an important role in early debates on the geographical origins of the Indo-European people. Greek φηγός is from the same root, but the word was
Beech Settlement to find better-paying jobs. When the Beech community's school and church closed between 1900 and 1910, the settlement no longer functioned as a farming community. Fewer than six Beech families remained by 1920. Sanford Hill, the last African American farming in Ripley Township, died in 1955. Beech's friends and the descendants of its former residents hold annual reunions. As with many of Indiana's black rural settlements, educational opportunities were important to its rural residents but limited. Beech children attended subscription schools (parents paid for their children to attend) in the settlement's meetinghouses or at nearby Quakers schools. Beech School was