The Christmas tree in our living room today is probably not the same species as that of our grandparents. And it’s likely that the beautiful tree adorning the home of our grandchildren won’t be the current holiday champion either. If history teaches us anything, it’s that Christmas trees—like fashion trends—have their seasons.
In Europe, the current undisputed champion of Christmas tree sales is the Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana). But before you picture a Scandinavian forest, let me burst that jolly bubble: it originally hails from the Caucasus region, which spans Turkey and Georgia. If you were expecting “Nordmann” to mean Nordic, think again. It’s named after Finnish biologist Alexander von Nordmann, who, back in the mid-19th century, ran the Odessa Botanical Gardens.
Why is the Nordmann so popular? Well, its soft, durable needles make it the ideal candidate for families with small children or anyone who can’t resist the allure of a good “needle-free” floor. Mass-produced in France, Belgium, and Denmark, this tree has gradually supplanted the traditional common (or Norway) spruce (Picea abies), the staple Christmas tree in north-western Europe for much of the 20th century.
In fact, the whole Nordmann-fir takeover is a bit like a game of (assisted) migration musical chairs. The spruce was itself an import from the mid-19th century (originally from its natural home stretching from the Jura to the Carpathians, including parts of northern Europe).
But wait ...
... could the Nordmann's reign soon be over? Could one of the southern or easterly fir species identified in the MigFoRest project swoop in to steal the crown? The suspense is real.
Take the silver fir (Abies alba) for instance. Used as a Christmas tree by our ancestors, could this lovely tree make a comeback? It has a sweet scent, but it stings if you rub it, and its branches are generally less dense than those of the Nordmann ...
Then there's the Spanish Fir (Abies pinsapo), the sunny tree from southern Spain. Will it one day bring a warm Mediterranean glow to your winter holiday? It already has in its native region.
Further east, will the Cephalonian fir (Abies cephalonica) be used as a small Christmas tree at an early age, as it is in Greece?
And last but not least, there’s the King Boris Fir (Abies borissi-regis). A regal name for a regal tree. It already reigns supreme in Bulgaria and Greece, but will it one day become the "King of Christmas Trees"? We’ll have to wait and see.
Whatever the case, and whichever tree you
choose, the MigFoRest team wishes you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!