Trees in Scotland

The tallest tree in Britain, a Douglas Fir, can be found in Reelig Glen woods, Invernesshire. But it was a close call, another tree in wales, also a Douglas Fir, at Powis Castle claimed the title for a few years. The tree in Wales was 205 feet tall which was slightly bigger than the tree called "Dughall Mor" in the Highlands. Last night there was a TV Programme called "Trees Which Made Britain" on the BBC2 and they came over to Scotland, accompanied by officials of the Tree Register of the British Isles, to remeasure the "Dughall Mor" using the latest laser technology. They found that the "Dughall Mor" was just a few feet taller than the tree in Wales. They measured the tree to be 210 feet, which is 64 metres making it officially the tallest tree of Great Britain.

The Douglas Fir was introduced in Scotland by the early 19th century gardener and botanist, David Douglas, who was the greatest plant and seed collector to walk the earth. Douglas was born in Scone and during his lifetime (1799-1834) he introduced more than 200 new plants to Scotland. These includes some of the most important trees in Scotland. The Douglas Fir is named after him.

In the early days Scotland was covered with trees, the so called Caledonian Forest. The Scots Pine, picture right, dominated this beautiful forest. Nowadays only small fragments of that forest are visible. Glen Affric has one of the largest remaining fragments of Caledonian Forest, other remains of the Caledonian Forest can be found in the Beinn Eighe Nature reserve on the south banks of Loch Maree in Wester Ross and on the little islands in Loch Maree itself which are also part of a Nature Reserve. Due to overgrazing by the many sheep the forest doesn't recover itself and therefore projects are started to restore parts of the Caledonian Forest. On the website Trees for Life you can find more information about the Caledonian Forest and the volunteers that try to restore parts of the forest.