Blue beech is also referred to as American hornbeam or musclewood. It is a small tree, 20 to 40 feet tall, with a trunk diameter of up to two feet. The crown is rounded and the trunk is often short and crooked.
Blue beech is widespread throughout Illinois in wet-mesic forests. It is native to most of the eastern United States with the exception of the southern two-thirds of Florida, areas of the Gulf Coast, and the Mississippi River bottomland south of Missouri to the gulf. It tolerates a wide variety of conditions, but grows best on wet-mesic, rich soils. It doesn't tolerate flooding very well, and requires soils that drain or are unsaturated.
American hornbeam is a slow growing tree that typically occurs as an understory species. It is primarily a secondary tree, rarely a dominant. It occurs in mesic and wet mesic forests with white oak, black oak, pin oak, sweetgum, cherrybark oak, American elm, hop hornbeam, flowering dogwood, sugar maple, and blue ash, to name just a few associated trees. It often occurs in habitats (for example, a transitional forest changing from mesic to wetter forest types). Even though blue beech leaves are of average or low nutrient content, they enrich the litter/soil because major plant nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus remain in the leaves when they are shed.
Blue beech wood is strong and hard, but because the tree is so small, it is rarely harvested for the manufacture of wood products. Nevertheless, it is useful for tool handles, levers, and mallets. Blue beech is an important food source for gray squirrels in bottomland hardwood forests. Game birds also eat its seeds, buds, and catkins.