Saturday, 29 April 2023

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.)


No comments:

Post a Comment