Tree species: European beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea)
Location: Monastery Park, St. Rafael
Trunk circumference: 3.70 meters
Trunk height: 30 meters
Age: around 200 years old
This copper beech does not have green leaves as usual, but its foliage is colored red due to a natural mutation. The red leaves lack an enzyme that breaks down the red pigments (anthocyanins) found in young leaves. As a result, the green inside the leaf is no longer visible. These copper beeches are therefore also known as copper beeches. Over the course of the year, copper beeches lose their characteristic red color, they gradually turn green and often look just like all other (copper) beeches in autumn.
European copper beeches can only be propagated by seed with a low degree of certainty, as this mutation is a real freak of nature. To reproduce copper beeches, they are therefore usually propagated by grafting. There are even theories that all copper beeches originate from a mutated tree from the 17th century ...
