Favourite large native British tree

[xenon]

weeping willows always creep me out. Imagine if it was a carnivorous tree that uses them long cordlike boughs to drag you towards the trunk which spits open as it puts you in there and inside its all acid and flesh that then dissolves you over several hours. It doesn't bear consideration.

I'm no hippy. But no way man. Trees hold no nightmare potential for me. Except that children's TV show I only half saw once. If you ran round the tree 10 times anticlockwise the devil would appear. I never saw the end of that show, I think I had to go to the dentist or something. But that freaked me out for ages, just pondering it. What was the show, did the kids run round the tree.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Lime tree, I call in linden, there are lots in a bit of parkland near here, a lovely spot for mooring, the smell when they're in flower is lovely.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Isn't ash the tree that hates people, because it drops branches unexpectedly? I'm not sure where I got that from, maybe The Sword in the Stone.

The dog's morning walk is through an old oak wood every day, and it makes me very happy having to go through those trees.

Crack willow drops branches on you. Never heard that ash did.

 

[gentlegreen]

It's actually allegedly the mountain ash that smells like that - according to kalidarkone - but we only have her word for that and her tree snuffed it before I could get a noseful ...

 

[bi0boy]

only if you crunch the seeds - allegedly ...

Not much is known about it really. I started a Wikipedia article on the taxine alkaloids with all the info I could find and no one has expanded it. Posion victims seem to come to light as acute psychiatric hospital admissions or suicide victims: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3541

Some taxanes are yielding interesting anti-cancer drugs though: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11895119

 

[kalidarkone]

It's actually allegedly the mountain ash that smells like that - according to kalidarkone - but we only have her word for that and her tree snuffed it before I could get a noseful ...

No it was a rowan tree!!

 

[Sprocket.]

Yew trees are a favourite and can live to well over a thousand years old.
Most Christian churches were built on the sights of earlier religions venues and as yew was seen as special by celts were planted on these sites which is why yews are found in churchyards.
Yews have been proven to remove pollution from the air as well.
We have an hedge made of five single yew trees that I have nurtured into a wonderful boundary.
We also have Hawthorn and Rowan trees to protect the dwelling from evil, according to my wonderful Celtic shadow queen!

 

[gentlegreen]

No it was a rowan tree!!

It's another name for it - presumably on account of the leaf arrangement - but there's also a eucalyptus called that and no doubt other trees on other continents but it's actually related to roses, apples and plums.

Sorbus is the Latin name, though doubtless that will eventually get messed around with by those damned taxonomists ..