An Estonian oak tree in a football field has left UK trees in the shade by scooping the European tree of the year award with almost 60,000 votes.
The highest-scoring UK tree in the competition, decided by a public vote, was the Major Oak, in Sherwood Forest Country Park, which is associated with Robin Hood and is thought to be between 800 and 1,000 years old, with 9,941 votes.
Scotland’s Lady’s Tree, a 100-year-old Scots pine at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Loch of the Lowes reserve, near Dunkeld, Perthshire, home to a famous osprey, Lady, for nearly a quarter of a century, came 9th with 4,193 votes.
And Wales’s Lonely Tree, a Scots pine more than 200 years old which stood on the top of a hill watching over the town of Llanfyllin, Powys, but blew over last April, came 10th with 1,548 votes.
The Estonian oak tree received 59,836 votes, almost a third (32%) of the almost 185,000 votes cast in total for 14 trees from countries across Europe.
All the trees join the European Trail of Trees, which allows people to find out more about them.
Woodland Trust ancient tree expert Jill Butler said: “It is clear that some of our European cousins place huge cultural importance on their special trees and it’s something we need to adopt in the UK too.
“We have a higher proportion of ancient and other veteran trees than anywhere else in northern Europe and we need to do much more to recognise their value and improve their protection.”
