Poisonous fruit

As part of their set of trees, Lego also made this type. Which is listed as a "fruit tree" on Bricklink but which (again with all due and sincere respect) isn't quite right. The tree has details picked out in red, which I suppose were taken to be apples or such. But the thing is, fruit is heavy and hangs down (and gets hidden from view by the leaves) whereas these red details point upwards from the tree and are very visible. That's because they are flowers and the tree is in fact a Chestnut tree (a Horse Chestnut to be precise).

Here is a fine example of a Chestnut tree in full bloom, which happens late May-early July. Even from afar, you can see torch-shaped bunches of blossoms growing up from the branches.

And here is one such cluster of flowers up close, in white this time. Chestnut trees can have flowers ranging from white to pink to red. The leaves are visible as well in this photo, where you can see there's five or so radiating from each single stem. Which Lego has reasonably represented on their toy tree as well.

Chestnut trees do bear fruit, being chestnuts of course. But. The fruit of the Horse Chestnut tree isn't edible (by humans at least); they'll make you quite sick if you'd try. Which is another reason I wouldn't describe the Lego Chestnut as being a fruit tree. But whether by Lego or for real, they do look absolutely lovely.

Just to be complete, the picture below shows a branch and fruit of a Sweet Chestnut (broken off a neighbouring tree during a recent storm). If you want to eat chestnuts then this is what you're looking for. They're easily identifiable by having single leaves with serrated edges and extremely spiky burrs around the nuts (a Horse Chestnut has thick, rather tough burrs with far fewer, thicker, horn-shaped spikes). Their flowers are stringy catkins as opposed to the torch clusters shown above.

There are no Cypress trees in Denmark

 

No native ones at least. At the time Lego modelled the trees above, there was I believe only one Cypress in the whole of Denmark, under glass in the Copenhagen botanical gardens. That's because Cypresses are mediterranean trees, used to much warmer climates than temperate Denmark.

Here's a few of them, in the middle of a garden in Rome. As you can see they're a very dark green cone shape, nothing like the medium-green trees that Lego made. In fact they're conifers, evergreen plants with long narrow leaves similar to what you'd find on an evergreen hedge f ex. So (with all due and sincere respect), the people who put these trees on Bricklink have got it wrong.

What Lego used as an example are Poplar trees, which are very common all over north-western Europe. The most common species is known as the 'Canadian' Poplar which is a cross between a North American and a native European variety, bred centuries ago and spreading ever since.

Poplars grow fast and can get very tall. Being carpenters before they started making toys, the Christiansen family will have used Poplar wood because it's relatively light, easy to work and relatively cheap because Poplars grow so fast. Because of their length they're also good for making fences.

Out in the open, Poplars are also often found as windbreaks along fields or roads (especially in Northern France) so are a very familiar sight. Little wonder Lego included them in their tree set.

The Lego Poplar is of course the same height as the other trees in the set, but that will be due to the maximum height of the mould tooling.

(As a final note on Cypress trees, I do find Danish garden centres now offer them but that's beside the point here.)