Spruce up Christmas by saying no to fake fir

YOU’VE probably got your Christmas tree by now, and I hope it’s a real tree grown in Ireland and not a plastic, made-in-China, job.

If there is a real tree standing in your house, festooned with decorations, it may be useful to know a bit about it. At least you’ll be able to use the information to bore your less favourite relations when they visit.

A number of conifer species have been used as Christmas trees since 1844 when the custom was first introduced into these islands by Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband. But the original of the species is the Norway spruce, and it’s still the most popular and widespread Christmas tree in Ireland. It looks good, it smells wonderful and growers find it quick to produce. It has the disadvantage because it starts shedding needles after a week or so in a heated environment.

When you were shopping for your tree you may have been offered an alternative, typically at a higher price. This tree would have looked quite different and may have been advertised either as ‘nobilis’ or as a non-shed tree. It was a noble fir and the reason it was more expensive was that it was a bit slower growing and this increased the producer’s overheads. Which species looks better in your living room is a matter of taste — personally I prefer the traditional Norway spruce and I’m prepared to spend a few minutes with the dustpan and brush sweeping up the aromatic needles it sheds and putting them on the fire.

In fact both the names under which the noble fir is sold are inaccurate. It’s not non-shed because it will drop some needles, quite a few if you don’t stand it in a bucket of water when it doesn’t shed them as quickly or in such large quantities. And the ‘nobilis’ bit is a reference to a completely obsolete botanical name, Abies nobilis. Nowadays it’s called Abies procera.

The tree is a native of America’s Pacific northwest where it typically grows in small numbers in the mountains, often in mixed groves with species such as Douglas fir. It is one of the silver fir family and there is no doubt it’s a handsome species which fully deserves the adjective ‘noble’, though many older specimens become disfigured because they have a habit of producing large crops of heavy cones on the upper branches and the weight of the cones breaks off the branches in autumn gales.

The first European to discover the species was David Douglas, of Douglas fir fame, who found it on the south bank of the Columbia River in 1825. It was first introduced into these islands in 1830 but it didn’t become widespread or successful until after 1850. Apart from the Christmas tree trade, it has some forestry applications on cold, upland sites.

Norway spruce is a European species, though it is not native to Britain or Ireland. It probably grew on land that is now Ireland before the last Ice Age but trees growing here since then have been planted by humans. It also seems to be a relatively recent introduction into Norway because no trace of its pollen can be found in their peat deposits. It grows wild over much of the rest of northern Europe, particularly in mountain ranges such as the Vosges, Alps, Pyrennees and Carpathians, but with some stands in lowland areas. In Ireland it was a popular forestry tree 40 or 50 years ago and deserves a revival because it’s hardier than sitka spruce.

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