A year of trees
Follow the trees through the year with me
A different tree, every week for a year. You can find my Wood land art for sale in the gallery.
Christmas tree – the elephant in the room
The debate about whether it’s more environmentally friendly to have a real or an artificial tree is one that only has one answer, and that is neither.
Certainly real trees have a smaller carbon footprint if they end their lives in a wood chipper or bonfire (3.5kg carbon) or in landfill (16kg carbon), while the artificial plastic tree (40kg carbon for a 2 metre tree) would take 12 years of Christmases for the artificial tree to meet the real tree’s footprint.
But either way has its problems. Real trees are grown in plantations that need pesticides. They aren’t popular with wildlife and the land they are grown on could be put to more environmentally-friendly uses. It would be better to grow something else that isn’t cut down and provides habitat as well as continuing carbon absorption.
Instead of getting into the debate about which of two poor options is better or worse, what about if we donated money to have a tree planted each Christmas instead? That would give us 50 million more trees in Europe each year. Now that really would make a difference.
https://earth.org/real-vs-fake-christmas-tree-environmental-impact
Giant sequoia – last of the giants
“Do behold the King in his glory, King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! Seems all I can say.”
John Muir 1870
The Big tree, the most massive trees on earth today are the giant sequoias that once grew across North America, Europe and Asia until the last ice age. Now they only grow naturally in the Sierra Nevada in California but have been planted around the world in parks and gardens.
The one I visited is in the bishop’s palace garden in Chichester which is about 30m tall. It may strive to rival the cathedral’s spire at 84m, perhaps the sequoia will match it one day as record trees do grow to 90m.
These trees can live for 3000 years, so it may well outlast the cathedral as well as out grow it. Fire is now the enemy of the wild sequoias which are an endangered species. Wild fires in California destroyed up to 19% of the remaining sequoias there in 2020 and 2021.
These ancient giants are reminders of another world before the ice ages. A lost world, a land of giants.
Giant sequoia, Bishop’s Palace garden, Chichester, West Sussex
Wollemi Pine - Lazarus returns
Old and rare, the Wollemi pine’s wild family were only discovered in 1994 in Wollemi National Park in NSW. Before then the tree was only known through fossils. The most recent fossils of the genus are from Tasmania and go back about 2 million years.
Now there are fewer than 100 trees left in the wild but you can find them all over the world where they have been planted to help conserve this rare and unusual tree. There are Wollemi pines in Kew Gardens including one planted by Sir David Attenborough in 2005.
The trees are related to the monkey puzzle and the Norfolk Island pine and are all members of the Araucariaceae family. They once grew in abundance in eastern Australia but gradually declined until just a few were left in remote, sleep-sided gorges in Wollemi National Park. Once they had been discovered and identified the location was kept a secret. The fear was that rare plant hunters would find the trees’ location so a plan began to propagate the trees and grow them again in locations all over the world, bringing this rare and ancient tree back from the brink.
Wollemi Pine, Bishop’s Garden, Chichester, West Sussex
Eucalyptus - longing for the sun
The smell of eucalyptus oil being distilled in the Australian bush is an enduring memory for me. It’s like a thousand hot summer days, when a blue eucalyptus oil haze hangs over the tree tops. When I see a lonely eucalypt in a British garden I wonder if it longs for the Australian sun.
As the deciduous trees loose their leaves in late autumn the eucalypt soldiers on. The leathery leaves are packed with oil that is a natural disinfectant and toxic to most animals, including humans. However the koala has developed the ability to eat these leaves but at a cost that includes sleeping for 20 hours a day.
Eucalypts have been around for a very long time with the oldest fossils found in South America from 51.9 million years ago. The trees are no longer native to South America but were reintroduced from Australia. The first eucalypts to come to Britain returned with the explorers’ ships. The type specimen came from Bruny Island just off the coast of Tasmania collected in 1777 by David Nelson.
The eucalypt is a mixed blessing. It’s a fast growing tree that can even be used to drain swamps but the oil content of the leaves means that it burns very easily and can even explode in hot fires. The tree is fire tolerant and will regrow.
Of the 700 eucalypt species, the tallest is the mountain ash, which can grow to 100 metres making it the tallest of all today’s flowering plants.
Eucalyptus, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Medlar – old favourite
I know several local medlar trees and recently gathered some free fruit from the Petersfield Physic garden. The medlar was popular with the Romans and in medieval England but is almost unknown today. Its medieval name was “open-arse” perhaps because of the shape the open calyx (like a rose hip but bigger) or because eating unripe fruit can give you diarrhoea. Either way, it doesn’t sound very appetising.
The medlar originated in South-east Europe and Western Asia and was popular with the Greeks and Romans. In warmer climates it will ripen on the tree but here the fruit needs to be “bletted” or left to go rotten before it is eaten.
I waited for the fruit to go soft and dark and then cut one open and dipped in with teaspoon. The flavour is reported to be something like baked apples with a chestnut puree texture. I got the texture but there wasn’t really much flavour at all, not unpleasant but not exciting enough to try another one.
Medlars, Petersfield, Hampshire
Hazel – faith in the future
I have faithful walking stick made from hazel, I call him Sylvester. The stick is cut from coppiced hazel, an ancient method of producing straight hazel sticks that can be used for many purposes. Each time the hazel is cut from the base or stool it grows back again with a bundle of new straight sticks that can be cut and made into hurdles, fencing, wattle (for wattle and daub walls), thatching pegs, bean sticks and walking sticks.
I see old hazel coppices when I go walking but sadly many have not been harvested in years and the hazel has grown too thick and tall to be useful. If you walk in old woodland, or along old laneways you’ll probably find hazel that has been coppiced in the past.
As well as producing useful sticks, hazel makes nutritious nuts that have been enjoyed by humans for thousands of years. Archaeologists find charred hazel nut shells among prehistoric remains.
The Celtic legends of hazel nuts make them the emblem of concentrated wisdom, sweet and compact, “in a nut shell.”
When I see the hazel I think of perseverance. It was one of the first trees to recolonise Britain after the last ice age, it grows back after coppicing time and time again, and it makes its catkins ready in autumn. If you look among the last hazel leaves you’ll find the green catkins ready for next spring.
Hazel with catkins, Stane Street, West Sussex.
Birch - new life
ᛒ Beorc byþ bleda leas, bereþ efne swa ðeah
tanas butan tudder, biþ on telgum wlitig,
heah on helme hrysted fægere,
geloden leafum, lyfte getenge.
Birch is fruitless, yet bears shoots without seeds, is pretty in its branches high in its spread, fair adorned laden with leaves touching the sky.
Anglo-Saxon rune poem
As we reach the end of October the veil between the living and dead is drawn thin. Some celebrate this as Halloween, or All Hallows Eve or as Samhain, the start of the Celtic year.
At Samhain, birch twigs are tied in bundles to drive out the spirits of the old year or make the traditional besom brooms that are the models for witches’ flying brooms.
As well as bring linked to purification the birch tree is also a symbol of the Norse goddess Frige who is celebrated in sex, reproduction, magic and death. Friday, Frigesdaeg is her day.
It is strange that the Rune poem says that birch is fruitless and bears shoots without seeds and perhaps this idea is linked to the celebration of renewal and the goddess Frige. However, birch does produce catkins and seeds, and is very successful at quickly creating a carpet of little seedlings sprung from its seeds on open ground.
Birch is a great survivor, it was one of the first trees to arrive in Britain as the ice age glaciers retreated and has continued to survive and grow in these islands ever since.
Birch woods, Southleigh forest, East Hampshire/West Sussex
Beech – an autumn feast
I love the autumn beech trees, lanes turned into tunnels of copper and gold. This glorious tree was a staple for food and fuel and planted and nurtured for practical rather than poetic reasons.
Beech trees arrived in Britain after the last glacial period, about 8000 years ago and are native to Southern England and South Wales and planted across the rest of the islands. They were valuable for their beech nuts and pigs were turned loose in the forests and woods in autumn for pannage of beech nuts and acorns.
The Romans used beech wood to burn for fires to smelt iron and in the weald of Sussex and Kent the beech ash was used to colour forest glass. The woods around London were cut for fuel for fires and ovens. The timber was used for chair legs.
But some beech trees survived and one in Derbyshire grew to 45m as the tallest broadleaf tree in Britain in 2018. Another in West Sussex was 44m tall in 2015. A standard beech can live 250 years but a pollarded tree can double that lifespan.
Beech tree, Dean Lane End, Hampshire
Field maple – in plain sight
'Hold yowre tunge and say ye best
and let yowre neyzbore sitte in rest
hoe so lustyye God to please
let hys neyzbore lyve in ese'
Hold your tongue and say the best, And let your neighbour sit in rest, He is so eager to please God, He lets his neighbour live in ease.
Engraving from a Maplewood mazer made around 1380, Victoria and Albert museum, London
Once you know what to look for field maples are all around, they are tucked into mixed hedges, at the corners of fields and the edges of woods. They blend in to the countryside and it isn’t until autumn when they set fire with yellow and orange leaves that you will notice them.
The field maple is hardly valued as a tree now but it was prized in the past. The wood is tough and fine grained and makes great carvings and the bodies of musical instruments. Two Anglo-Saxon lyres made from field maple have been found, one as part of the treasures of Sutton Hoo.
The wood was used by Viking craftspeople to make cups which have been found in Jorvik (modern York) and the area where they worked was called “Copper Gate” which means “cup street”.
In Medieval times the burrs from field maples were used to make drinking bowls called mazers, the most celebrated ones were decorated with silver.
Perhaps they once held the other field maple product. Like the north American maples, the field maple sap was once collected in spring and used to make wine and syrup.
Field maple, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Fig – wisdom of the fruit
These Mediterranean fruit trees may have been introduced to Britain by the Romans but the first recorded fig tree is from the 1500s when one was grown at the Archbishop’s palace in Fulham.
Although they need a warm, sunny place to do well they have been successfully cultivated in glass houses.
While there is little or any British folklore about the fig there is plenty in Greek and Roman mythology. The fig is linked with Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and sexual license (aka Bacchus in Roman mythology). A lovely wall painting from a house in Pompeii shows a fig tree with a snake and birds. In classical mythology the snake is usually associated with wisdom (take the Christian story of Adam and Eve as an example of how the snake’s wisdom is punished, and that makes me wonder why fig leaves were chosen to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness).
We still make a tenuous link between the fig, Dionysus and sexual adventure. Here’s the text for a male fragrance called Dionysus Fig by Bramasole:
"Dionysus Fig, since ancient times it was a plant consecrated to the Greek god. A walk in the shade of the fresh and lush fig trees, immersed in the scent of the land of Tuscany. An essence that combines the green and woody smell of fig leaf with the unforgettable sweetness of its juicy fruit. The fig scent is a breath of green, fresh and persistent notes that caress the skin. The freshness of the famous greens that are released from the leaves and wild fruits of the forest, such as raspberry, present and flourishing in the typical Tuscan vegetation, the milky flavor of figs, the density of white ebony wood, are the ingredients that characterize this perfume, for those who love a natural freshness to “wear” all day long."
Fig trees at Fishbourne Roman Palace, Sussex
Artwork inspired by ‘Serpent in fig tree’. Roman fresco (3rd style) from the Casa del Frutteto in Pompeii.
Horse Chestnut – smashing!
My childhood horse chestnuts memories are of finding the best conkers by climbing over a chain link fence into a strip of woodland by the railway line. The biggest, shiniest, more desirable conkers grew there and we could make an illicit harvest and climb back over the fence with a selection that we hoped would beat all others in the playground.
We found a more accessible and more plentiful supply on family walks in Bushy Park where a huge avenue of horse chestnuts provided whole schools of children with conkers. This avenue was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and planted in 1699, only about 100 years after the first horse chestnuts were brought from Constantinople to England. These early trees were planted in parks and grounds of big houses where their wonderful candles of white or pink flowers make a show in springtime. In Bushy Park there was a tradition of a spring Chestnut Sunday picnic and fair which was revived in 1977. The next date is set for 12 May, 2024.
The other annual chestnut event in the World Conker Championship held in Ashton, Northamptonshire. You can experience this in person on 9 October 2022.
Horse Chestnut conkers, found in Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Aspen – speak to the spirits
With leaves that move in the slightest breeze, the aspen is associated with communication, especially between this world and the next. A crown of aspen leaves was worn to protect anyone wishing to visit the and return from the underworld. An aspen leaf under your tongue is supposed to give the gift of eloquence. Listening to the leaves as they whisper may connect you to the spirit voices in the air.
Along with birch and willow the aspen was one of the earliest trees to come to Britain as the ice retreated 12,000 years ago. Its magic and healing properties were known and valued by the ancient people of the Isles and before Christianity it was among the sacred trees. After Christianity the tree was condemned as the wood that Christ’s cross was made from, and the tree was said to shake in shame ever since.
In autumn, the leaves turn yellow and gold. Find an aspen and watch it dance in the autumn sun.
Aspen, Stansted Park, Hampshire.
Spindle tree – deadly beauty
With bright pink berries with orange centres you know when you have found a spindle tree in fruit. But beware, these berries are poisonous to humans, although birds enjoy them.
The spindle tree is also called prickwood or gatter because its hard wood was good to make into sharp points that could be made into ox goads, or skewers or knitting needles. They can also be made into spindles for spinning fleece or flax into thread.
There may be a link to the Sleeping Beauty story, where the princess falls into a 100 year sleep after being pricked by flax on a spindle. This is an ancient story, perhaps from the 13th century Icelandic Saga, Volsunga and the story of Sigurd and Brynhild. Over the centuries the story changes and goes through many twists and turns from a dark tale of rape and cannibalism to an everlasting opera (Wagner) to a show-stopper Disney gateaux. I like to think that the princess is the sleeping earth of winter awoken by the warm of spring, but then I’m like that.
Spindle, Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Hampshire
Whitebeam – pushing the boundaries
The Anglo-Saxons often used the whitebeam as a boundary marker. It’s a distractive tree with white leaf buds in spring and clusters of red berries in autumn. The name, whitebeam sounds Anglo-Saxon (beam meaning tree in that language) but is an 18th century name. The tree’s traditional names change across the country and include hen-apple, whittenbeam, white-rice, hoar withy and quick beam. It’s a sorbus, a member of the same family as the rowan and wild service tree.
The red fruits are loved by birds, squirrels and hedgehogs and used to be eaten by humans too. They taste bitter when picked but if they are left to decay, to ‘blet’ they taste better. They also make good jellies and you can mix them with apples or other hedgerow fruit.
The wood is hard and good for making cog wheels and gunstocks. And some prize it for magical properties and make wands and staffs from the tree.
There are many different whitebeams to discover from the rare Arran Whitebeam that grows only on that island, to the White’s Whitebeam in the Bristol area. The tree can self-pollinate and hybridise with service trees and rowan. It’s a tree in evolution, changing to adapt to its surroundings.
Whitebeam, Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Hampshire
Sweet Chestnut - giant glory
I went to find the ‘Cowdray Colossus’ in Cowdray Park, West Sussex. After confusing myself by missing the start of the walk shown on the map I eventually retraced my steps and discovered this mighty tree at the top of a paddock. The tree register lists this as the largest sweet chestnut tree in England with a girth of more than 12 metres and over 26m tall. Estimated at 450 years old this giant is still growing.
Sweet chestnuts are not native to Britain and while some sources say that they were introduced by the Romans the archaeological record has only found one instance of chestnut husks in Roman Britain. These were the peelings of five sweet chestnuts discovered as part of food waste that also included olives, stone pine nuts and Mediterranean fish bones which suggests an exotic feast at a Roman farm in Essex. The oldest sweet chestnut trees in Britain that have been dated were from 1640. There are medieval records like the 12th Century one from the Forest of Dean where King Henry II in granted a tenth of the chestnuts to the monks of Flaxley Abbey.
Sweet chestnuts were planted for their nuts which can roasted and eaten or ground into flour. The trees were often coppiced and the timber used for fenceposts, hurdles and wattles.
And if you are troubled by a cough you could try Culpepper’s remedy of a paste of ground sweet chestnuts mixed with honey, which sounds good to eat anyway.
The Cowdray Colossus, Cowdray Park, West Sussex
Rowan – forbidden fruit
Diarmuid and Grainne were on the run in Ireland. They lived from the land, hunting and tracking in the woods until autumn came. Then they found a place in the wild wood called the Forest of Dubros which was cared for by a troll. The troll gave the couple permission to live in the wood as long as they did not eat any of the berries from the magical rowan tree.
Grainne was pregnant and wanted to eat the berries and would not take no for an answer. So Diarmuid fought the troll for the rowan berries and after a long and fierce fight he won. Grainne began to eat the berries and then she and Diarmuid climbed the tree in search of sweeter berries. They found the troll’s nest high in the tree and stayed there, eating the magical berries and feeling younger and more beautiful than ever.
From The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne, an ancient Irish narrative.
The rowan is a tree of protection, magic and perhaps rejuvenation. It was traditionally planted by houses to ward off witches. One of its many names is the ‘Witch Wiggin’ tree. While it is bad luck to cut down a rowan tree, there are many things you can do with its twigs and branches. They might be hung over stables for protection, or used to stir milk, or made into divining rods or used as a charm against rheumatism. The berries can be made into jellies for humans to eat but there is no promise that they will return you to youth and beauty.
Rowan berries, Cowdray park estate, West Sussex.
Sycamore – the martyrs’ tree
“We raise the watchword, liberty. We will, we will, we will be free!”
George Loveless, one of the Tolpuddle martyrs, 1834
Nearly 200 years ago six farm workers met under a sycamore tree in their Dorset village called Tolpuddle. They were fed up with poor wages and bad living conditions. They decided to work together to improve conditions and swore a secret oath to do that.
They were arrested and tried for swearing a secret oath, found guilty and transported to Australia for seven years. They became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the sycamore tree where they met is celebrated as the birthplace of the British Trades Union movement.
However the sycamore tree is rarely celebrated elsewhere. It may be despised as a non-native (although it has been in Britain for at least 500 years). Its wet leaves often disrupt the railways in autumn, it grows too well and crowds out other trees, the aphids and insects that live in the tree drop sticky liquid on anything below.
But for all that it could be a tree for the future. It is tough and grows well even where there is air pollution or salty spray. The insects it harbours provide food for birds. The wood is fine-grained and good for carving and making kitchen items like rolling pins and chopping boards. It provides good shade on hot days and an autumn show of changing coloured leaves.
Sycamore trees, Havant, Hampshire
Hawthorn - the guardian
Ðorn byþ ðearle scearp; ðegna gehwylcum
anfeng ys yfyl, ungemetum reþe
manna gehwelcum, ðe him mid resteð
Thorn is painfully sharp to any warrior, seizing it is bad, excessively severe for any person who lays among them.
Anglo-Saxon rune poem
The Hawthorn is ancient and sacred. Also known as May it is the only plant named after the month when it flowers. The name is for the spring flowers but now in August there are already bright red berries on the hawthorn hedges. The name hawthorn comes from the Anglo-Saxon word hagedorn that means ‘hedge thorn’.
A hawthorn tree is a rarer sight as most hawthorns are found in hedgerows where there were used to make a cattle-proof hedge and would have been a feature of ancient landscapes. Hawthorns grow long, sharp thorns as well as sweet blossoms and red berries. Hedges were ‘layed’ to make them stronger and thicker by cutting part way through uprights and laying them (sometimes tying them) down towards the ground to thicken the hedge.
As well as being cattle-proof, hawthorn hedges make great protection for nesting birds. Hawthorns may also be found guarding ancient sites like stone circles and burial places, springs and holy wells. I have visited places where people still leave strips of fabric, ribbons and clothing on a sacred hawthorn as an offering.
The ancient ways were often taken and remade for Christianity and for the hawthorn this became a link to Christ’s crown of thorns and drops of red blood. The Glastonbury Thorn in Somerset is traditionally descended from a plant planted by Joseph of Arimathea, the man who buried Christ. It is supposed to flower twice a year, at Christmas and in May. And traditionally each year, a flowering sprig is sent to the King or Queen for their Christmas table.
Now, in August take note or where the hawthorn berries or haws grow and collect them later to make jellies or flavour drinks.
Hawthorn berries, Stansted Park, West Sussex.
Wild Service – lost and found
I have been searching for a Wild Service tree since read about them while I was researching for this Year of Trees. They seemed elusive and yet they were once prolific.
The Wild Service is a native tree that produces small fruits that need to be ‘bletted’ – or frosted before they are eaten. They were probably part of the diet of prehistoric people and later used to flavour spirits and as treats for children. The fruits are also known as chequers and many pubs, especially in Kent still bear that name.
It seems strange that a tree that was once valued for its fruits and timber is now little known and rarely found. The Wild Service was one of the Vert trees of the hunting forests that could not be cut because deer fed on them. The Vert trees were holly, crabtree, hawthorn, blackthorn and service. If deer are fond of eating them it would be no surprise that young service trees are eaten by deer before they can grow.
The leaf of the Wild Service is distinctive although it is something like a large hawthorn leaf, or a field maple or a guider rose but once seen it is easy to distinguish. The tree prefers clay and gravel soils in the South and East of England and it also found on limestone soils to the West.
I was lucky to be walking to Bucklers Hard from Beaulieu along the river and saw that Wild Service trees have been planted in Burnt Oak Copse. We found a tree by the path and others closer to the river. I search for other trees in my home area but found nothing listed close by. But knowing what to look for helps and I found another Wild Service planted close to home.
Sadly, none of the trees I have found had fruit and so I will have to wait to sample the fruit that was once a treat for country children, and tasted something like sultanas, apricots, damson and tamarind. It was collected in autumn and hung inside on strings to ripen. There are records of the fruit being sold in markets in Sussex and on the Isle of Wight in 1850.
Wild Service leaf from Beaulieu River, Hampshire
Tamarisk – salty and sweet
Not a native tree but a long-time import from Europe and the Middle East, the Tamarisk grows in salty and windy conditions and is a great coastal tree. It will grow in salt pans, deserts and places where other trees won’t thrive.
It’s a tree that gets mentioned in ancient texts: in Egyptian papyrus scrolls, in the Bible, the Quran and Mesopotamian tablets. In The Epic of Gilgamesh from 2100BC, the goddess Ninsum bathes in tamarisk and soapwort. In Egypt, the god Osiris is trapped in a wooden chest and thrown into the Nile where he ends of wedged in a tamarisk tree. In the Bible, Abraham plants a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and in the Quran the people of Saba are punished when Allah converts their garden into bitter fruits and tamarisks.
It may even be the source of the Biblical manna from heaven, although this disputed. In northern Iran Tamarix mannifera produces a white, sweet honey-like substance called mann in Arabic, which is gathered by the local people.
Although Tamarisk is seen as an invasive tree in parts of the United States it provides vast areas of forage for bees when nothing else is available. The small flowers produce lots of nectar and pollen to attract insects. In the past tamarisk honey was considered primarily “bee feed”—honey to be left on the hive for overwintering. But is available for human consumption in some places.
Tasting notes for Tamarisk honey promise “aromas of dark beer, molasses, soy sauce, hickory and pine.” It sounds amazing but I have yet find any to try here in the UK.
Tamarisk, Bracklesham Bay, Sussex
Crab apple - wild jelly, roasted crab
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob.
Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
A roasted crab sounds much fishier than it is. Crab apples are hard and sour to eat raw but make great jellies and jams. They can be roasted and served with meals, barbequed crab apple anyone? And added to warmed ale and winter punches like the one Puck is describing.
Crab apples are the native and original wild apple tree growing small tart tasting fruit in thorny branches. There aren’t many of these left in the wild, you are more likely to find ‘wildings’ which are trees grown from discarded apple pips.
The name may come from the Old English crabbe, ‘meaning bitter or sharp taste’, or from Anglo-Saxon scrobb, meaning shrub. Crab apple trees are mentioned as boundary markers in Saxon charters. The juice of these apples was also used to make cider and verjuice, which was used to give food a sharp lift like lemon juice.
Now, crab apples are often domesticated for their lovely spring blossoms but the fruit seems most delightful to me. Harvest after the first frost.
Crab apple tree, Petersfield Physic Garden
Elm – ghost trees
I don’t remember the elms of my childhood but they must have been there, great billowing trees in the countryside and perhaps even in my suburban landscape, where people lived in Elmbridge or Nine Elms. These were the trees of Constable’s paintings, they appear in Turner and Stubbs’ and many other artists’ work too. And now they are gone, 25 million trees killed in ten years. Destroyed by Dutch Elm disease and the 1987 hurricane.
Elms have regenerated but are struck again by beetles and fungus of Dutch Elm disease when they grow large enough. I wanted to see an elm for myself and I could have travelled to see Brighton’s last stand collection or the elm tree in Marylebone High Street but I did find a Dutch elm hybrid (Wych elm and smooth leaved elm) in more nearby Chichester. Planted by the Roman walls and marked on their city tree map.
It stands tall with whispering nettle-like leaves, but so lonely. An elm protected from disease by hybridisation and isolation. It was like seeing the last of an ancient animal, sad and alone. Almost a ghost. A memory of all the lost trees.
Elms have long had an association with death, their timbers used for coffins and gallows. The elm was linked with the underworld in Celtic mythology and with the elves who guarded burial mounds and their dead.
Embla, the Elm is also the tree that the first woman was made from according to Nordic mythology. Men were made from Askr, Ash, according to the same lore. If we are the trees and they us, where are we when the trees die?
Hybrid Elm, Chichester, West Sussex
Lime – heart and shield
“Never more openly have warriors landed when carrying shields,
And you have no leave from our men of battle.”
Lines 244 and 245, Beowulf translated by Howell D Chickering, Jr
In the original Old English poem the shield carriers are specified as lind-haebbende. Lind or linden is the old name for lime and so it was understood that the shields of these warrior were made of lime wood. A good choice as lime is light and absorbs shocks well. The British Museum’s replica of the Sutton Hoo shield uses lime as its timber.
Lime is native to Britain but only fragments of the ancient woods remain. You are more likely to find the common lime, a hybrid of the large-leaved and small-leaved lime. When I discovered that some ancient large-leaved lime trees still grow in the nearby South Downs National Park I went walking to look for them.
The large-leaved lime has heart-shaped leaves and fragrant flowers that attract bees. In early July I was too late for the flowers and the trees had already set seeds that fall to earth on a single bract that acts like a wing. I found small-leaved lime trees coppiced to produce multiple trunks. Coppiced limes can keep growing for hundreds of years. At Silk wood, Gloucestershire there’s a lime coppice that measures 14 metres across, with 60 trees all clones of a single parent tree that once stood in the centre of the circle. It is estimated to be at least 2000 years old but may be much older.
Continuing down a narrow footpath, I looked up and saw the large heart-shaped lime leaves with seed bracts hanging below them. These trees are part of an ancient string of sites along the northern edge of the South Downs where the soil is chalk-based. It seems that lime trees love lime soil. I’m glad I found these ancient trees and I’ll visit in June next year and hope to find them in flower.
Large leaved Lime, South Downs National Park
Weeping willow
I often visit an old mill pond with a great weeping willow growing on the bank. Someone has kindly placed a wooden bench where I can sit under the green curtain of willow leaves that shade the bench and fall down to touch the clear water of this chalk-stream pond.
While there are many native willows in Britain, the weeping willow was introduced from Northern China in the 18th century, perhaps by the poet Alexander Pope who grew them in his garden by the river Thames.
Britain in the late 1700s had a craze for the Orient and in 1780 Thomas Minton saw an opportunity to create a Chinese-style design for pottery based on elements from genuine Chinese designs. The key elements are a pagoda, fenced garden, bridge, lake, boat, island and two birds, and of course, the willow tree that the pattern is named for.
There is a story that links all these elements, published in 1849 in The Family Friend magazine. It is said to have been inspired by a Japanese story, The Green Willow. In the Japanese story, green willow is a lovely young woman, but in the English version the young woman is called Koong-Shee and the willow doesn’t get a mention. However, in China the willow is associated with immortality and rebirth, so perhaps the two lovers who are turned into birds at the end of the story are also celebrated in the willow.
There were different versions of the pattern too. I have a Mason’s ginger jar that I use as a pencil pot with some elements of the willow pattern decorating it. In this version the tree stands upright with two intertwined trunks, the leaves barely moving. But in the original Thomas Minton version the willow moves in the wind, and appears as the most lively object in the design. However, neither version suggests the full green canopy of the great weeping willow by the pool.
Willow pattern from a plate.
Ash, farewell fair tree
Æsc biþ oferheah, eldum dyre
stiþ on staþule, stede rihte hylt,
ðeah him feohtan on firas monige
Ash is very tall, dear to men, strong in foundation, holds its place properly, though many men fight against it.
From a Saxon Rune poem, 8th or 9th Century
The Saxons loved riddles and this poem’s description plays on the understanding that men fight against the ash but not in the form of a tree, but as a spear. The wood of the ash tree was used to make weapons and a warrior was known as an “ash-bearer”, and a group of warriors as an “ash army”, fighting was “ash play” or “ash strength”, while a great warrior might be “ash famed.”
This native British tree is the third most common tree. It was once a sacred healing tree, and the naturalist Gilbert White reports on distorted ash trees in Selbourne, Hampshire that were used in a healing ritual. Young trees they were split open and babies with ruptures or other weakness were passed through the split trunk. The tree was then bound up with the understanding that as the tree healed so would the child. In Sussex, there is a tradition that we should greet each ash tree as we pass.
As well as weapons, and healing the ash offers firewood that will burn even when wet. Its black buds in spring make good fire lighters because of the oils they contain.
But ash trees are dying. The Woodland Trust estimates that 80% of British ash trees will died from Chalara dieback. This is a disease caused by a fungus. Ash dieback causes trees to lose their leaves and the crown to die, and usually results in the tree’s death. It is thought that tens of thousands of ash trees will die. This will be a huge loss to the landscape, so greet an ash tree while you still can.
Ash tree, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Oak King of Midsummer
Midsummer is the time of the Oak King. In Midwinter when the Holly was king, the oak was bare and leafless. In Spring the oak leaves appeared again and the season of the Holly king passed. At Midsummer, the Oak is at his greatest power.
The Oak King is an ancient power, the word ‘druid’ means ‘oak wisdom’. Midsummer is the high point of the wheel of the year. The longest day, the shortest night. From here the wheel turns towards harvest and winter once more.
Oaks can be found all over Britain. Some ancient trees, perhaps a thousand years old, with stag-like antlers of old branches that poke from the top of the crown. Some oaks in field hedges, planted as ‘pensioner oaks’ by agricultural labourers who hoped that an oak tree that was ready to cut when they could no longer work would provide for the rest of their lives. And, seedlings, little oaks planted with love and care, in plastic tubes to protect them from nibbling deer, a legacy for a future forest.
The oak is prized for timber for houses and ships, for furniture, and as a home for more than 500 species of invertebrates. Acorns were a rich food source for pigs, once driven to the woods in autumn for this annual feast. And when times were hard, acorns were roasted for human food an even made into a coffee substitute during the Second World War.
Oak tree in the field, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Pears – in frost and flame
There are two little pear trees in my garden. One tree, keen to produce flowers and leaves, was going well in some warm spring sunshine when we hit a cold snap in early April and so I have tried to save the new growth by covering it overnight. So far, so good.
Pears have been valued and enjoyed by humans for thousands of years. There is even evidence of pears from Neolithic settlements in Europe. Like the apple, pears seem to originate in the Tien Shan mountains of Central Asia and have now spread around the world.
Wild pears, with hard fruit and thorns, seem to be native to Britain, and pear trees are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon charters as landmarks. The cultivated pear may have been introduced by the Romans but the pear was mainly prized as a winter keeping fruit that could be harvested, stored and then cooked. These were called Warden pears.
Now there are 3000 varieties of pear grown around the world. They are eaten raw when ripe and sweet, or cooked, or made into a pear cider called perry. But my favourite pears grew in my childhood garden and I used to cook them in the ash of the garden rubbish fire and called them ‘bonfire pears’.
Pear tree leaves and blossom, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Black poplar - a rare delight
I found a black poplar on a farm track on the northern side of the South Downs. I didn’t recognise the tree but I was intrigued but its big, bright red catkins that were scatted like confetti on the track.
These red catkins, known as ‘devil’s fingers’, (supposed to be unlucky to pick up, I discovered later) were the clue to this rather elusive tree. The pure black popular is Britain’s rarest native tree, with about 7000 in the country, although there are more hybrid black poplars around. That might seem like a reasonable number but as the trees are either male or female, and only 700 are female, and they need to be growing close together to be able to create seeds, the black poplar looked like it might be in trouble.
These were once common trees, they enjoy a wet situation so fields and woods that flood are ideal. The wood is slow to burn and so was a good building material for traditional houses, even growing into the shapes needed for cruck-framed buildings. John Constable’s Suffolk landscape paintings celebrate the black poplar. But, drainage and clearance has destroyed much good black poplar habitat and now the trees are found scatted in small groups around the country.
The National Trust, has been planting black poplars at Quarry Bank in Cheshire. The Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire has a good population. But the trees are still to be found in the unloved, damp places. I met my next group of black poplars growing by a drainage ditch between the railway and a playing field. This time, I knew what they were.
Black poplar, Charleston, West Sussex
Magnolia – flowers for dinosaurs
This spring has been wonderful for magnolias where I live in southern England. The gardens around me are bursting with exuberant magnolia flowers that seem to be celebrating the spring equinox.
This popular garden tree belongs to deep time, it is one of the earliest flowering plants with fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period 100 million years ago. That’s when Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed the earth. Then magnolias grew wild across Europe, North America and Asia. Now they are only indigenous in southern China and the southern United States, but they are found in gardens around the world.
Wild magnolias are pollinated by wingless beetles, and that makes sense when you consider that magnolias grew before bees and other winged insects arrived.
The first magnolias to come to Britain were brought from Virginia in the United States (or the colony of Virginia as it was then) in 1688. In South America the Aztec people cut the magnolia flowers for festivals, and the Spanish explorer Hernandez described them in a work published in 1651.
If you really want to see the incredible variety of magnolias you can visit the UK’s magnolia collections at Caehay’s Estate (Cornwall), Wentworth Castle (Yorkshire), Windsor Great park (Berkshire) and Bodnant (north Wales). Or, just walk around your neighbourhood until you spy a dinosaur flower in bloom.
Magnolia, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Goat willow – moth’s delight
All 'round my hat I will wear a green willow
All 'round my hat for a twelve month and a day
If anybody asks me the reason why I wear it
It's all because my true love is far, far away.
Traditional
Goat willow is also known as pussy willow or sallow. It’s just one of more than 18 native species of willow in Britain. Willows were among the first trees to recolonise Britain after the ice retreated about 10,000 years ago. Some willows love water but not all, and goat willow is happy to grow in hedges, ditches, woodland and wasteland. I found this one growing at the end of a garden by a railway line.
Goat willow is best known for the silky grey male catkins, like cat’s paws that burst into yellow mop heads. The silky grey catkins give it the name, pussy willow, but these are also called goslings in some places.
Unlike other willows, goat willow isn’t used for making baskets and the wood isn’t much use except for making charcoal. Goats may enjoy the leaves but the real specialists are the sallow kitten moth caterpillars. It’s also an important food for the purple emperor butterfly.
Willows are associated with grief and sadness, a link that pre-dates the introduction of the weeping willow to Britain. People left by their lovers wore willow, perhaps a good way to avoid uncomfortable conversations or to indicate the newly single.
But willow also takes away the pain because the bark contains salicin, which is the compound used in aspirin. Chewing willow bark was the traditional way to relive plain.
Goat willow, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Blackthorn, mother of the oak
I’ve been waiting for the blackthorn to flower, checking nearby to see how the buds are progressing. Almost as soon as I saw the first flowers opening in a garden hedge we had our little ‘blackthorn winter’ with sleet and snow.
The ‘blackthorn winter’ is just the time when spring feels around the corner and there is a blast of winter once more before we get another warm spell.
The blackthorn flowers will become the sloes of autumn and these hard, tart fruits have been used by humans since the Stone Age. Otzi, the 5000 year old frozen man found in the Alps, was carrying dried sloe berries. These may have been food but they also have medicinal properties that include the treatment of diarrhoea, heart problems and wounds.
Now, I gather the sloes to make sloe gin for midwinter, or for hedgerow jelly with other foraged berries.
The blackthorn has so many uses that I’m surprised not to find more about. It makes a great hedgerow plant, as the thorns are a deterrent to animals pushing through. It provides protection for nesting birds, the leaves provide food for caterpillars, and like the hawthorn, blackthorn protects young oak seedlings from deer, and is called, “mother of the oak”.
The Lunantisidhe, or moon fairies, guard the blackthorn according to Irish folklore. They will curse anyone who tries to cut the blackthorn on the Samhain and Beltain festivals but leave the blackthorn on the full moon, so that may be the safest time to cut wood or gather sloes. It is considered bad luck to bring the blackthorn flowers indoors, so the moon fairies may be the reason behind that.
I’m happy to enjoy the flowers while they last and look forward to the sloes in autumn.
Blackthorn, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Quince, apple of the Gods?
“It is yellow in colour, as if it wore a daffodil
tunic, and it smells like musk, a penetrating smell.
It has the perfume of a loved woman and the same
hardness of heart, but it has the colour of the
impassioned and scrawny lover.”
Shafer ben Utman al-Mushafi, vizer in Cordoba until his death in 982.
Translated by A. L Lloyd.
Hot pink quince blossom is an exciting find on a dull February day. The fruit was once much more popular than today, and many people wouldn’t recognise the quince in flower or fruit.
Quinces have been grown in Britain for nearly 800 years. Four quinces trees were planted at the Tower of London in 1275 for King Edward I, although Charlemagne had them in his garden in France 400 years before that.
Although it is more closely related to the rose, the quince has been linked to the golden apples of ancient myths. Classical writing calls both apples and quinces melon. Perhaps the golden apple that Paris gave the Greek goddess, Aphrodite was a quince. One of Heracles twelve labours was to gather sacred golden fruit from Hera’s garden on Mount Atlas. The forbidden apples of the Garden of Eden may well have originally been quinces too.
Sadly, the hot pink flower of my local quince probably won’t produce any mythical fruit, as it is a Japanese flowering quince rather than a Central Asian/Middle Eastern/European fruiting quince. But if you do discover fruiting quince, they are well worth harvesting and cooking. They are fragrant and produce a wonderful pink colour when cooked. If you can’t wait for autumn, then the Spanish quince paste, membrillo is excellent with cheese.
Flowering quince, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Wattle, Australian sunshine
“This here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand.”
Monty Python, Bruces sketch
I met this silver wattle tree a long way from home, growing in sheltered front garden in southern England. Although it is February and most trees are waiting for warmer weather to open their flowers, this Australian native was already covered in a vibrant yellow, sweet-smelling cloud of blossom.
Wattle Day in Australia is celebrated on the first day of Spring, 1 September. The Golden Wattle is the country’s national floral emblem.
There are more than 1000 species of Acacia in Australia, where they are called wattles after the way they were used by the European settlers to build walls and fences. The name wattle comes from the Anglo-Saxon and describes the flexible sticks used to weave between wooden uprights to create a structure. It was often covered in a mud-based plaster called daub.
The indigenous people of Australia had their own names and uses for the wattles. They used them for medicines, tools and weapons, carving digging sticks, spears, and musical instruments from their wood. Some wattle seeds were used for food, and you’ll find ground wattle in bush tucker recipes. They taste like a mixture of chocolate, coffee and hazelnuts.
Here, on a cold February day the flowering wattle is like a blast of Australian sunshine.
Silver wattle from Fisnbourne, West Sussex.
Cedar of Lebanon - great tree
My best chance of meeting a 250-year-old cedar of Lebanon is in a grand landscaped park around a stately home built on the blood, sweat and tears of the slave trade.
These wonderful giants were chosen to grandise the parks of the super-wealthy, a suggestion that a man with a great tree in his garden must be great man. Of course, they weren’t so large when they were planted but 250 years ago people were thinking long-term.
The famous re-shaper of the English landscape, Capability Brown made cedars of Lebanon his signature trees. While he is remembered although much of his work is lost, the cedars are still with us. And, we can hope these trees will be there for another 750 years, if we can imagine a world approaching year 3000 that still has trees on earth.
The cedars of Lebanon come from Lebanon, Syria and the Taurus Mountains of Turkey and are named in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and the Jewish and Christian holy texts. They can reach 1000 years old and grow 35 metres high. Timber from these trees was used to build the temple of King Solomon in Jerusalem. The fragrant wood was also used to line chests and wardrobes as the smell keeps insects away.
No wonder the aristocrats of England wanted to buy into the mythology of the mighty cedar: great size, long life, holy associations and a fragrance that repelled the lower orders.
Cedar of Lebanon from Goodwood, West Sussex.
Stone pine, pesto lover
It’s another evergreen Mediterranean tree this week. The stone or umbrella pine. This tree has a lovely rounded dome of green needles and was used in paintings by artists to signify places in the Mediterranean, especially Italy. Now you can find it growing all over England and southern Scotland. Kew Garden’s first stone pine planting was in 1846 and the tree is still growing in the gardens today.
Turner complained about painting trees and is said to have wished that he could do without trees in his landscapes. But he included a super-tall stone pine in his painting Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 1832, Tate Britain, looking rather like a light green cloud on a stick.
Sadly, the stone pine in Italy is under attack from the western conifer seed bug and many pines have been affected by this US-based pest. The bugs eat the sap from the developing cones and the seeds don’t develop as a result. Without the seeds, the natural replacement of the pines is threatened.
As well as providing a distinctive piece of landscape punctuation the stone pine produces the little pale pine nuts used in pesto. Mediterranean pine nuts are expensive and more difficult purchase now, and most pine nuts are imported from Asia.
As we’re coming up to Valentine’s Day it may be useful to know that pine nuts were used as an aphrodisiac. The second century Greek writer, Galen suggests that a combination of almonds, honey and pine nuts eaten on three evenings would be effective.
If you want to discover the taste of the stone pine, follow this pesto recipe.
Pine nuts, a small handful
Fresh basil leaves, a big bunch. Just use the leaves, no stems.
Parmesan cheese, about 50g grated
Garlic, one, two or none, depending on your taste. Skin the cloves first.
Olive oil, about 150ml
Lightly, dry roast the pine nuts in a pan, turning to make sure they don’t burn, they just want to darken a little. If you are feeling traditional then grind the ingredients together by hand in a mortar with a pestle, otherwise blend everything together in a food processor.
Serve over pasta, gnocchi or jacket potatoes. Or, just about anything that needs a little extra flavour!
Stone pine from Southsea, Hampshire
Holm Oak, salted truffles and ham
This evergreen oak grows acorns but its leaves aren’t like the British native oak’s lobed shape. This oak’s young leaves can look more like holly and that’s why it’s called the Holm oak, as holm is an old name for holly.
This Mediterranean tree has been growing in Britain for about 500 years but mainly in the south of England because it doesn’t like frost. It’s a great sea-side tree as it will tolerate salt, so look for holm oaks along the south coast.
The largest holm oak woodland in Northern Europe was on Ventnor Downs on the Isle of Wight where the original trees had been planted in the Victorian era, but the National Trust was concerned that the trees were taking too much land from the chalk grasslands and introduced a herd of goats to keep the oaks’ new growth in check.
They might have been tempted to introduce truffles instead as the holm oak is one of the top three trees used in truffle orchards. You can even buy holm oak saplings with the truffle fungus included.
The acorns are also special treat for Spanish pigs raised in holm oak woods and their ham fetches high prices as jamon iberico.
So the holm oak wood lands provide a feast in Europe and an evergreen, salt tolerant windbreak in the south of England.
Holm oak tree from the Bishop’s Gardens, Chichester, Sussex
Monkey Puzzle dinosaur survivor
After 200 million years on earth, the monkey puzzle tree is now endangered. It’s hard to think that this great survivor is now threatened with the fate of the dinosaurs.
The monkey puzzle evolved 200 million years ago with its armoured and spiky leaves and trunk to protect it from browsing animals. The great reward for its self-protection is a rich harvest of nutritious pine nuts for humans and animals alike.
In Chile and Argentina where the last stands of old monkey puzzles grow, the native people, call themselves Pehuenches, people of the pine seeds. The seeds of the monkey puzzle were a valuable resource that would get families through the winter. They were cooked and eaten, or ground into flour or brewed into beer.
The trees can live for 1000 years and may take 40 years to produce seeds. Now logging, forest fires and grazing have diminished the native forests and pushed the monkey puzzles to endangered status.
The first monkey puzzles arrived in Britain in 1795 with Scottish surgeon and botanist, Archibald Menzies. The trees later became a fashionable Victorian garden statement and many of the older trees in British parks and gardens are the result.
Now there is a new trend to grow the monkey puzzle as protection for its future. The Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh propagated seeds from Chile and the young trees were sent to different sites in Scotland and the Eden Project in Cornwall.
If you do want to grow monkey puzzle trees remember they do grow big (25m high) and you’ll need both male and female trees if you want to produce seeds.
Monkey Puzzle tree from the Bishop’s Gardens, Chichester, Sussex
Wassail the apple tree
The 17 January is old 12th night and the traditional date to wassail apple trees to encourage them to grow a good crop of apples.
The word wassail comes from an Anglo Saxon greeting, waes haeil meaning be healthy. The first record of apple wassail comes from 1585 in Kent but the tradition may be much older.
As darkness falls visit an apple orchard and find the oldest or biggest tree. We can sing and dance around the tree.
“For to bear well and to bloom well,
So merry let us be,
Let every man take off his hat,
And shout to the old apple tree.”
From a traditional apple wassail song from Somerset.
Then the tree is blessed and cider poured over its roots. Next make lots of noise to awaken the spirit of the tree and place pieces of toast among the branches.
Apples hold special importance in the West Country and I think of my Somerset ancestors who would have had part of their wages paid in cider. Perhaps three pints a day in winter rising to a gallon at the hay cut. Cider was cheaper than tea, milk was for children, water was nasty so cider was the best option.
Wassail!
Cooking apple tree from Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Scots pine the way marker
When cattle walked across the country to market the scots pine was the way marker. Each night the drovers needed a field for their animals and an inn for their shelter. As they walked through the country they looked for the distinctive shape of the scots pines to show them the way. Some pines were planted by farmers with a suitable field, others planted from seeds carried by the drovers themselves.
These overnight stops often have the word halfpenny in their name. This may have been the overnight charge for each beast. So if you find a place called halfpenny field with some scots pines growing you may well have found a drovers’ stop. A local inn called the Drover’s Rest is another good clue.
The scots pines have been leading the way for a long time. They were among the earliest trees following the receding ice northwards 10,500 years ago.
They were the dominant tree in the great Caledonian forest growing alongside birch, rowan and juniper.
Now you’ll find scots pines all the way from the Atlantic coast of Europe to Siberia. The trees have been grown for timber for ships’ masts, for pit props and even hollowed out for water pipes. The burnt wood makes tar and pitch for waterproofing and the resin can be used as a medicinal chewing gum.
The scots pine stands as a feature in the landscape marking a drover’s rest, a way mark, or the burial place of a tribal elder.
A Gaelic proverb says,
”Cruaidh mar am traoch,
buan mar an giuthas.
Hard as the heather,
lasting as the pine.”
Scotts pine tree from Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Bay for victory
The bay tree is not native to Britain, it originates from the Mediterranean where it features in mythology, victory and cookery.
When you think of bay trees you may have a mental picture of a fragrant well-trimmed bush in a pot. But the bay can grow to 20 metres tall. The one in my garden is having a good try at reaching that height.
The bay tree’s story in Greek mythology is of a lovely nymph called Daphe who was pursued by an enamoured Apollo. Cupid had played his part enflaming Apollo and disgusting Daphe. The nymph asked her father to make her safe from the god’s unwanted advances and he turned her into a bay tree. Even then she wasn’t safe as Apollo used her branches and leaves to decorate himself. The bay, or laurel, was then used to wreath the victors of the Pythian games. The Nobel Laureate and baccalaureate share the same root and branch.
Still it isn’t all glory for the bay tree, its tasty leaves were used in Roman cookery as flavouring for the savillum cheesecake, and continue to flavour our food today.
Bay leaves have also been used as medicine from medieval times in Britain with help for digestion, and for colds and flu.
We are warned not to eat the berries which are stimulants and narcotics and we’re used by Apollo’s priestesses to prepare them to give prophecy.
Bay tree from Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
New Year Yew
ᛇ Eoh byþ utan unsmeþe treoƿ,
heard hrusan fæst, hyrde fyres,
ƿyrtrumun underƿreþyd, ƿyn on eþle.
The yew is a tree with rough bark,
hard and fast in the earth, supported by its roots,
a guardian of flame and a joy on native land.
From the Anglo-Saxon rune poem
This rune poem is more than a thousand years old. It names the runic letters and gives a verse to each. Four trees have their own runes: the oak, ash, birch and yew.
Some ancient yews in Britain may date back to the Anglo-Saxon days, and some even earlier making them among the oldest living things in Britain.
The ancient yews at Kingley Vale in West Sussex are undatable but at least 500 years old. The story tells that a group of Vikings attacked the Sussex coast in 859 and were beaten by the local people in a battle at Kingley Vale at the foot of the South Downs. The yew grove was planted to commemorate the victory.
I visited this grove of ancient trees and found their twisted forms like muscular warriors still fighting their ancient fight. Their branches dip to the earth where they root and grow again like a living fountain around the ancient trunk.
This ability to regenerate has linked the yew tree to death and resurrection, a tree to mark the end of one year and the birth of a new one. The yew is a sacred tree found in Christian churchyards, and in some cases, ancient enough to pre-date the building.
Yew is also a hard, long lasting wood and a yew spear tip was found near Clacton-on-Sea in Essex and dated to 400,000 years old. It is now in the Natural History Museum in London.
Yew tree from Kingley Vale, West Sussex
Midwinter Holly
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown - Christmas carol
The holly’s association with midwinter goes back further than Christianity to a time when the holly was king of the winter wood.
Blood red berries, shiny green leaves, the Holly is the hopeful symbol of winter survival. At midwinter, when the shortest day is only eight hours long, here in southern England, most of the trees are dormant, leaves long blown away. Their branches and twigs make skeletons against the grey winter sky, but the holly stands green and shining.
In the Anglo-Christian tradition the holly is a Christmas celebration tree. The carol says that the prickly leaves remind us of the crown of thorns and the red berries of Christ’s blood. But there’s more to this. If you really wanted thorns, surely the hawthorn would be better, or even the rose with thorns and red hips in winter. The midwinter holly connection is older than Christianity.
The wheel of the year is divided in two: mid-winter to mid-summer is a time of growth and flowering, mid-summer to mid-winter is a time of fruiting and rest. The holly king starts his journey at the autumn equinox, the moment when the nights begin to lengthen. The holly king is the monarch of autumn and winter, and he is the protector of the plants and trees through winter.
There is a belief that cutting down a holly tree will bring bad luck although branches taken for decorations or fodder were allowed.
When farm hedges were cut any holly trees were allowed to stand above the hedge line where they would provide an obstacle to witches who liked to run along hedge tops.
Holly from Rowlands Castle, Hampshire