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
Gregg A. Mast Gregg A. Mast Gregg Alan Mast is a Reformed clergyman, scholar, and seminary president. Mast is the author of six books on Christian practice and theology, and the editor of a collection of sermons by Reformed minister and theologian Howard G. Hageman Since 2006, Mast has been the fourteenth president of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary located in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the United States—one of two seminaries affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Mast has overseen the seminary in a time of transition as it built a new, smaller, "technologically smart and environmentally green" campus on College