ONE of the world’s rarest and most endangered species of fir tree has ‘coned’ for the first time in decades at a garden attraction on the Powys-Herefordshire border.

The ‘Abies Bracteata’, or ‘Santa Lucia/Bristlecone Fir’, is a native of Monterey, California, where its natural habitat is less than a 30 square kilometre area, and it is regarded as an endangered species. Although there are several other trees of this species growing in selected gardens in the UK, a ‘coning’ is a very rare experience.

The last recorded time that an older specimen of this tree produced a cone was in the early 1960’s.

County Times: The last recorded time that an older specimen of this tree produced a cone was in the early 1960’s. The last recorded time that an older specimen of this tree produced a cone was in the early 1960’s. (Image: Hergest Croft Gardens)

The fir is located at Hergest Croft Gardens, in Kington, near New Radnor. The exciting discovery was made just before Christmas when the huge tree was undergoing routine maintenance by Herefordshire-based Tree Surgeons, Abortech.

“We are absolutely thrilled and very excited about this event,” said Austyn Hallworth, head of marketing and PR for Hergest Croft Gardens.

“This discovery is so horticulturally important and crucial for its survival outside of North America, that we have sent seeds to specific centres throughout the UK and Europe in an effort to propagate and cultivate for the future.

“The seeds were harvested by Abortech who scaled the tree using ropes. It was only when they reached the top that they realised the fir had coned.

“The original Abies Bracteata at Hergest Croft Gardens was planted in Park Wood in the 1930s and was scaled by Dick Banks in the 1960s when he entered the cones in a Royal Horticultural Society competition and won a gold medal.

“Sadly, this tree has since died but the three remaining examples are its children, as they were seedlings taken from it.”

OTHER NEWS

Hergest Croft Gardens is a 70-acre estate of horticultural importance within the UK that has been owned by five generations of the Banks family, and is host to over 130 ‘Champion Trees’.

Champion Trees are individual trees which are exceptional examples of their species because of their enormous size, great age, rarity or historical significance.

Hergest Croft Gardens is also home to 5,000 rare trees, plants and shrubs together with the National collections of maples, birches and zelkovas.

Only in December, we reported how Hergest Croft Gardens had been confirmed as being home to one of Britain’s tallest trees.

A Douglas Fir, standing at 200 feet and more than 160-years-old, was confirmed as the third tallest tree in the UK by the Tree Register of the British Isles (TROBI).

“So good are the growing conditions that Hergest Croft can now boast only the third tree in England to be measured at 200 feet (61 metres) tall,” said Owen Johnson, a TROBI registrar who had recently visited the gardens.

“Part of a plantation of Douglas Firs, planted most probably in 1863 in Yeld Wood, this fir grows on a very steep slope and it was only this autumn that I found a position from which to measure it precisely.

“Thanks to the steepness of the bank, the height to an average ground level – rather than to the base at the top side – is 61.5m.”

The TROBI is a charity which collates and records a database of notable trees throughout the UK and Ireland and has the largest database in the world.