British Native evergreen trees
December 2022
The conifer is synonymous with Christmas of course, though this is a relatively new tradition. In 1841 Queen Victoria’s new husband Albert introduced a German Christmas tradition into the British royal household. From that point on the Christmas tree has, apart from a small dip in popularity after the death of the Queen (Victoria), been on the up and up in this country, Western Europe, America and many other parts of the world.
The history of the Christmas tree’s origins are many and varied, but essentially evolve from the Pagan and Druidic celebrations of the Winter Solstice (21st December), this being the shortest day. The lack of daylight inspires the ‘celebrations of light’ with the encouragement of sunlight for the next half of the year and the hope for a fertile time to come.
To symbolise this a sprig of something green was brought into the home, which represented eternal life and the promise of replenishment during the winter months. Over the years this evolved into the tradition today of the evergreen tree.
The Christmas tree is also a Christian symbol and is said to have originated its religious roots through the English monk St Boniface who in the 7th century went to Germany to teach the word of God. Legend has it that he used the triangular shape of the Fir tree to describe the Holy Trinity.
The fir tree that we historically associate with Christmas is actually a Norway spruce Picea abies a native species of Germany, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. More recently the Nordmann or Caucasian Fir Abies nordmanniana native to the Caucasian mountains has become popular for its tendency to hold onto its needles.
Here in Britain we have only five native evergreen trees, but not all evergreens are conifers and not all conifers are evergreen. Of the five, two are not conifers - box Buxus sempervirens - typically a large bush when left to its own devices and holly Ilex aquifolium that we all know and love this time of the year (unless you need to pick up their fallen leaves).
These are both angiosperms, whose seeds are held within their fruit and differ from conifer trees (gymnosperms) that have naked seeds; angiosperms are more recent on the evolutionary scale than conifers by approximately 200 million years.
Our native conifer juniper Juniperus communis is a low growing spreading shrub or small tree and famous for its use as the flavouring ingredient of gin, indeed in the 17th century it was one of Scotland's largest exports, mainly to Holland for the production of jenever, the forefather to gin. What we call a juniper berry is in fact a tiny cone with fleshy scales.
Just to confuse the issue further, another of our native conifers, Yew Taxus baccata bears a single seed in a modified seed cone resembling an open ended berry called an aril.
Photo by Mark Timberlake on Unsplash
