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I was walking through the oak woods on the Quantock Hills a couple of weeks ago and it was literally raining acorns! I thought the local squirrels were on the warpath!

Kate's just said beech nuts are poisonous... I thought they were edible, a bit like sweet chestnuts?

my friend lives in goshen, north west connecticut. we were there with them at the end of august and her neighbour said "it will be a heavy winter with lots of snow". on asking why she said that the berries and leaves were falling much earlier in the season. she went on to say that it didn't happen every year. when you mentioned 'mast' year, it just made me think of that point and does it have any meaning?

I'm not at all sure beech mast is poisonous, historically it's been eaten by people in hard times, it's in the food for free books, and i've eaten it.

Beech nuts are deffinatly not poisonous. you can eat the nuts from the beech tree from late september onwards, you can crush and squeese out the oil of the beech nuts to cook with and you can also eat the beech leaves when they are almost tranlusent in April. I expected Kate to know her stuff?! She has dissapointed me :(

In response to Superkingfan. It seems to have been raining acorns everywhere as I have two fantastic chips in my car windscreen both unbelievably caused by acorns! It has never happened to me before.

I have eaten Beech mast for over 60 years with no ill effects. Peel the triangular fruit and eat the kernel, small but tasty

I was astonished to hear Kate Humble say that beechmast was very poisonous, because I've eaten it for years, and very good it is too. I began to get worried, but reassured on seeing that other people also enjoy beechmast. Did information about yew trees get mixed up with that on beech trees?

I remember that we used to collect Beechnuts when we were kids, take them out of their three sided shells and salt and roast them like peanuts - are they really poisonous Kate? we also used to collect and eat the young leaves of the Beech, they are really tasty with a slight vinegar tang.
Polly

Beech mast is not poisonous I have been esting it for 60 years. Come on Kate, get your facts right!

While it was a surprisingly good year for horse chestnuts (given the prevalence of leaf miner and 'conker canker') and not a bad year for sweet chestnuts in Richmond Park - I saw chestnut pods opening on the trees (usually the parakeets clean them out before this) - it certainly wasn't a bumper year for the oak trees. The last really good one for them was 2007. That said some of the hawthorn trees have been red with berries. I've been chasing this up on nature bulletin boards for the past few years and different areas seem to have different 'mast'years and dearths.

Hello all, I have a question about beech mast/nuts. There is a beech tree in my garden and a hedge (they all stared off as a beech hedge boundary over 100 years ago and one has been allow to grow (I have a photo of the hedge from 1908). My question is , why does the tree produce nuts/mast, but the hedge - which is just as old, doesn't? The only thing I could think of was the diference in height, if so - why would this make a difference to producing mast?

With reference to the Yew Tree - the "fruits / berries" should be referred to as ARILS.

Oxford English Dictionary: "an extra seed covering often coloured and hairy or fleshy e.g. the red fleshy cup around a yew seed."

Carol

Kate said that beech nuts were poisonous for us but you can buy beechnut oil and I also often collect beechnuts from trees in my area of west London and eat the kernel inside with no side effects! I also noted that Chris wouldn't lick his finger when he was handling yew berries. I totally agree with him that almost all the yew is poisonous but you can eat the berries (not the seed!) with no ill effects at all! If birds do it successfully, then there is no reason why we cannot. I do agree that it is not something you encourage children to do it! They taste sweet and very nice!

waxwings(20) in my garden which is in Daventry [Personal details removed by Moderator].