The delicate alder tree is, I think, often overlooked amongst our many beautiful native British trees.

It has an ancient and glorious history, though, and is connected with some of our most enduring traditions…

​The alder is a tree of the riverbank. Its Latin name ‘alnus’ is thought to be taken from ‘alor amne’, meaning ‘I am nourished by the stream’...
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Ash is one of our mightiest trees...

​A huge physical specimen when mature...

​But also a tree with some of the most impressive myth, meaning and folklore around it.

So let’s explore!

​And get to know one of our native British trees a little better…

The beautiful rowan is one of our most beautiful and colourful trees – with frothy white blossoms in spring, delicate feathered leaves, and colourful red autumn berries.

It’s also traditionally considered as one of most magical trees!

The name ‘rowan’ is thought to come from the Gaelic word ‘rudhan’ meaning ‘the red one’ – and/or the Norse ‘run’ meaning ‘rune’, ‘a secret spell or charm’.

The Gaelic ogham for rowan is ‘luis’ meaning ‘flame’, ‘herb’ or ‘great many’.

​Birch is one of our most beautiful native British trees and one of the most mystical!

Birch is often seen as a ‘pioneer tree’...

It was the first tree to start to recolonise the land after the last Ice Age and is, even now, often the first to start to grow on cleared lands or wastelands...

And it provides nourishment for the plants and trees that come after to allow the natural ecosystem to regrow.

​Because of this, birch is often associated with renewal and new beginnings.

Elder is one of our smaller hedgerow trees, growing wild in many places and self-seeding often.

It’s a tree that humans have used for thousands of years - and has a lot of folklore and superstition attached to it…

It’s thought that the name ‘elder’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon words ‘ellaern’ meaning ‘hollow tree’ and/or ‘aeld’ meaning fire, as the hollow twigs were used to spark a fire into life by blowing air into it.
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The Anglo-Saxons also used the words ‘eller’ and ‘kindler’ to refer to the wood of the elder, so we can see how the word ‘elder’ started to evolve.

The fern is one of our oldest surviving plants...

​Ferns were around even before the dinosaurs and date from the Mesozoic era (at least 66 million years ago).

The most common British wild ferns are:

• Male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas)
• Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum)

​But there are over 40 wild fern species including the Maidenhair fern and the Moonwort fern...

The beautiful ivy is an ancient, native British plant and is far more than that shady creeper that’s often overlooked while it’s steadily colonising the quiet places...

Those walls, hedges, tree trunks that thrive with life while we’re looking the other way…

Like bramble ivy may not, strictly speaking, be considered a tree – but, like bramble, the ivy is part of the delicate ecosystem of trees – reaching into hedgerows, twining around trees to provide shelter and sustenance for animals, birds, and insects...
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​The hazel is a small tree, most often seen in hedgerows these days, and much different in stature than a mighty oak...

But in its own way, no less important!

Hazel has been an extremely important tree for hundreds of not thousands of years...

And has been of great use to humans...

Let's explore our human history of the hazel...

​Our stories, beliefs, folkores and more...

​For many of us in the Western world, the holly is a tree with associations with Christmas.

And it’s true that the holly does come to the fore at this time of year...

​And traditionally it has very important associations with midwinter.

But holly is not just for Christmas!

And we’ll see how, in years past, the holly played an important role in our society at all times of the year...
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