The story behind the development of the Christmas tree is an interesting one, as is the choice of which species have become perennial favourites. But why has one apparently worthy candidate been so cruelly left out in the cold?
THE original roots of the Christmas tree are difficult to fathom. Ancient northern and middle European tribes brought evergreen foliage inside the dwelling to celebrate the pagan mid-winter festival of Yule, although this appears to have been holly and perhaps other broadleaf evergreen foliage. Certainly for Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon tribes, the ‘everlasting’ green leaves of the holly tree shining in the winter’s sun symbolised continuing life in the dead of winter and held magical fascination. These and later communities formed from the wealth of merging cultures offered the ‘lubber fiend’ and other benign woodland spirits the warm, sheltering boughs of holly around the ‘inglenook’ (corner beside an open fireplace) when their normal haunts in the woodland were devoid of leaves.
Holly has always been considered a good-omen tree, planted around dwellings to keep witches at bay and divert both thunder and lightning, and hung in bunches at the door for protection, the reason why there are still so many houses variously called ‘Holly House’ and ‘Holly Cottage’. Christianity absorbed many pagan customs, but how did we graduate from holly to the cone-bearing conifer as the classic contemporary tree for the celebration of Christmas?
There followed a lengthy pause before the advent of an evergreen coniferous tree (or bough of a tree), brought indoors and decorated. This all began in what is now modern Germany, but exactly where is less certain. The first decorated evergreen coniferous tree was documented circa 1520 in Alsace, the traditional border country straddling Germany and France. However, the following legend associated with invention of the Christmas tree, involving the religious reformer Martin Luther, is the most heart-warming, mid-winter story of all.
One winter’s night in 1536, Martin Luther was walking through a pine forest near his home in Wittenberg when he suddenly looked up and saw thousands of stars glinting jewel-like among the branches of the trees. This wondrous sight inspired him to set up a candle-lit fir tree in his house that Christmas to remind his children of the starry heavens from whence their saviour came.
THE GERMAN CONNECTION
From there on, all the running in the development of the Christmas tree was Germanic. By 1605, decorated Christmas trees had certainly made their appearance in Southern Germany, as in that year an anonymous writer recorded how at Yuletide the inhabitants of Strasbourg “set up fir trees in the parlours ... and hang thereon roses cut out of many-coloured paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets, etc”. But these forerunners of the contemporary Christmas tree did not stay in Germany. Millions of emigres took their customs to North America from the 17th century onwards.
So much for foreign lands, but how did the conifer evolve into the classic Christmas tree across the British Isles? The Ancient Britons (Celts, Gaels and Picts) almost certainly had their own pagan customs, augmented over the years by sequential invasions from Europe including Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and Vikings. However, the key contributions which kick-started the contemporary Christmas-tree tradition were made much later by two immigrants from Germany.
These were Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who married George III to become Queen Charlotte, and, half a century later, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, consort of Queen Victoria. Most texts will tell you Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree into the United Kingdom in the 1840s, although Queen Charlotte had played at least an equivalent part some 50 years earlier.
Spruce and fir trees were most commonly used in Germany, although yew and box were brought into the home for Christmas in some areas and it was one of these customs – decking out a single yew branch – that Queen Charlotte brought to England from her native Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) visited Mecklenburg-Strelitz in December 1798 and was much struck by the yew-branch ceremony he witnessed there. This is somewhat strange from a British perspective in which English yew had been spurned for such purposes from time immemorial due to its well-known toxicity and close association with death and burial grounds.
However, by 1800 Queen Charlotte had gone one better by potting up an entire yew tree and displaying the very first real and living complete Christmas tree anywhere in the British Isles. The custom caught on quickly amongst the aristocracy, who would dig up and pot up a variety of appropriate evergreen trees including pines, firs, boxes and even yews.
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So when, in December 1840, Prince Albert imported several Norway spruce trees from his native Coburg and decked them out to provide the centrepieces for Christmas celebrations at Windsor Castle, they were no novelty to the aristocracy. But crucial to the custom of setting up such trees in their own homes catching on with the masses was the way that periodicals of the time, such as the Illustrated London News, Cassell’s Magazine and The Graphic, began to depict and minutely describe the royal Christmas trees every year from 1845 until the late 1850s.
This account goes a long way to solving the conundrum as to why Scots pine, Britain’s only native, classic woody cone-bearing conifer has essentially been left out in the cold when it comes to Christmas. It’s certainly strange, as in other parts of the world the choice of Christmas tree has been dictated by what is naturally available. Today, dozens of different conifer species are used in the United States and Canada, but the original and traditional Christmas tree is the white pine or eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) with the latter common name giving the game away about why this should be so.
CHRISTMAS ACROSS THE POND
Eastern white pine was the tree most commonly encountered by early European colonists down the eastern side of North America. With its broad, ancient distribution down the eastern seaboard from Newfoundland in Canada to New England and all the way down to Georgia and the Carolinas, eastern white pine was the tree most commercially valued by the early colonists and right up until the end of the 19th century.
Its timber was used to build log cabins and, as one of the tallest trees on the landscape, its long, straight stems made ideal masts for ships. Eastern white pine bears long, soft and bluish-green needles with good retention. The foliage imparts little aroma, but by the same token it results in fewer allergic reactions than do many of the more aromatic species. Sheared trees are often preferred for Christmas trees, though they may become too dense for hanging larger ornaments. A good six-foot tree is produced in six to eight years on fertile sites.
Eastern white pine is a prime example of communities making the best use of a native conifer growing all around them, so why has the same not happened for Scots pine in the British Isles, especially since seedling regeneration in the right place is prolific?
What’s more, according to the North American Christmas-tree industry, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) exhibits better needle retention than all other conifer species used as Christmas trees there.
Believe it or not, Scots pine is the conifer species most frequently used as a Christmas tree in North America, where it is regarded as the lowest-maintenance of all Christmas trees. The one-inch-long needles show excellent retention, even as the tree dries out.
Trees reach a good Christmas-tree size of two metres or more within six to eight years, while yearly pruning helps to create the perfect, dense shape.
Americans say the only knock to Scots pine is the tendency of the trunks to grow crooked. I know all about this, because I had one planted in my garden as a tiny seedling some two decades ago. North Americans call the tree ‘Scotch pine’, an annoying but understandable corruption given the precedents set by Scotch whisky, Scotch eggs, Scotch pancakes and so on.
A fair and frequent description of Pinus sylvestris as a commercial Christmas tree in North America is: “Scotch pine is probably the most commonly used species in the United States. Due to its ease of planting, generally high planting survival and favourable response to plantation culture, the tree has been widely planted throughout much of the eastern United States and Canada despite it being a non-native species.”
My first thoughts on this are about just what we are missing by not using Scots pine as a Christmas tree. But all is not lost for Scots pine in its native land. While I have never seen the trees being sold as Christmas trees in the south of England, I am reliably informed of a strong and fast-growing niche market in Scotland and parts of northern England.
WILD SCOTS PINE CHRISTMAS TREES FROM SCOTLAND
Rothiemurchus Centre at Aviemore in Inverness-shire, Scotland, at the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, advertises its wild Scots pine Christmas trees as an alternative to farmed Christmas trees. The Rothiemurchus Estate claims to be the custodian of one of the finest remnants of the Caledonian forest, natural woodland dominated by majestic Scots pine and managed sustainably for nature conservation, recreation, woodland grazing and timber production.
Some areas have been consistently wooded since the last ice age (8,000 years ago), with one generation of trees succeeding another by natural regeneration. The Rothiemurchus forest is now enjoyed by 350,000 visitors a year and is home to some of Scotland’s rarest wildlife, including the capercaillie, pine marten, Scottish wild cat and crested tit.
Mature Scots pines, which can reach 300–400 years old, are known as ‘granny pines’, releasing billions of seeds every year, consumed by a multitude of creatures including red squirrels and Scottish crossbills. Those which reach the soil and find the right conditions will germinate and grow into seedling trees. The ideal germination and growing conditions are found in forest openings where the ground has been disturbed. This might occur naturally when a tree finally dies of old age or if a stand of trees is blown over by a storm or is harvested.
Such conditions also occur alongside pathways throughout the forest. The extension growth of pine seedlings is slow at first, with just a few centimetres per year, but this will accelerate and, after 10 years of good growing conditions, seedling trees will have exceeded two metres in height and be growing at a rate of more than 30 cm per year.
Growth is so rapid that pathways and viewing points are quickly overgrown and can become enclosed by dense walls of pines, so these opportunistic trees need to be felled. Some are left on the ground to furnish a crucially important habitat for fungi, insects, small birds and mammals, but every year there are surplus young Scots pine trees which the centre puts to good use as Christmas trees.
Scots pine is beautifully scented, non-prickly and has excellent needle retention, making these wild native trees an environmentally friendly alternative to the usual farmed Christmas trees, says the centre. In December 2021, the Rothiemurchus ranger service made two-metre-high Scots pine Christmas trees available for collection from the Rothiemurchus Farm Shop. It might be worth taking look on the internet or making a telephone call to see if they are doing the same thing for Christmas 2022. In the past, profits from the sale of these wild and sustainably growing Christmas trees have been used to repair and sustain pathways on site.
The question is: will Scots pine, Britain’s only native, classical woody cone-bearing conifer species, ever come into its own as a Christmas tree? Scots pine has certainly been noticed by the ‘fake and phoney’ Christmas-tree industry, because if you take a walk around the festive section of major retail stores you will see an increasing number of highly sophisticated artificial Christmas trees designed and manufactured to look just like the real pine thing.
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