What characteristics help identify a beech tree?

Beech trees (genus Fagus) are tall, wide-spreading, round-headed trees belonging to the family Fagaceae within the order Fagales. You can identify them by several distinct physical characteristics:1

• Bark: The bark is thin, smooth, and steel-gray in color.1
• Leaves: The leaves are shiny, green, and toothed, with parallel veins. They are arranged alternately along the stem. While many beeches are deciduous, they are considered "tardily deciduous," meaning they may retain their dry, lifeless leaves through the winter, especially when young.12
• Flowers: Male flowers are yellow-green and hang from threadlike stems. Female flowers typically appear in pairs on short, hairy stems on the same tree.1
• Fruit: The female flowers develop into prickly burs (a type of cupule or hull) that enclose one or two three-sided, sweet-flavored nuts.12

As members of the order Fagales, beeches share the characteristic of being woody plants that produce unisexual flowers, which are primarily wind-pollinated.23