SCOTS PINE, MORAY FOREST

The Great Caledonian Forest – the ancient woods that once cloaked much of northern Scotland – still figures prominently in both the Scottish landscape and imagination. The remaining areas of old-growth Caledonian pinewood are now precious and protected, and to walk through them is to reconnect with an era of true wilderness – a bygone time of lynx, brown bears and wolves.

Queen of this wild wood, past and present, is the Scots Pine, a tree of distinction. The only true native pine of the British Isles, it was crowned the national tree of Scotland in 2014. Classically conical in its early years, the long-living Scots Pine becomes more eccentric as it ages, often developing a lofty, branchless trunk and a crown in its later years. Its green-blue needles grow only in pairs, with a distinctive twist.