Christmas Trees - Is Brian Blessed A Local Celebrity?

 Christmas Trees: Is Brian Blessed A Local Celebrity?

Ron: Welcome to the first of two special Christmas episodes of Lex Education

Ron: This week's Education beast. It's a podcast. It comes out every week, so here's another one.

Laura: Hello, and welcome to the first of two very special Christmas episodes of Lex Education. It's the comedy science podcast where comedian Milor Lex tries to usually let science from her younger brother run, but is Christmas. So we fucked that in the bum and we sent it on its way and we're instead going to talk about Christmas.

Ron: Hello. Hello. Ho ho. I'm Ron.

Laura: He, he, It's Ron. Hey, Ron.

Ron: Hello. Uh, I'm a cheeky elf.

Laura: You're a cheeky little elf. Sitting on your shelf recording your podcast.

Ron: How are you doing?

Laura: I'm in a good mood. It's my first day at home for over a week. Uh, Christmas is just around the corner. I've done a workout this morning. I've made very odd shaped bread. I'm all over the world.

Ron: Are you doing your hundred, not plaits still?

Laura: No, I did two plaits. It was kind of good today. I just tried like a round loaf and to be honest, it's burst out of its shape and gone a really weird shape, even though I did some deep cuts in it. But one of the cuts sort of wandered off on its own, so. So it sort of has a flap, I guess.

Ron: Interesting.

Laura: I'll send you a picture. Should be delicious. But it's not good sandwich shape at all.

Ron: I made sagaloo yesterday. Ooh, that's good.

Laura: I made a loo sag yesterday. Shut so hard.

Ron: Uh, no sag paneer. I made not sagaloo. Get out. Potatoes.

Laura: Why can't you make sagalup in here?

Ron: I don't like potatoes. I could.

Laura: Oh, yeah, you don't, do you?

Ron: It's one of my things.

Laura: Yeah. I quite like potatoes. I love potato salad famously.

Ron: Yeah, you're a potato salad kind of.

Laura: Person, as we all know.

Ron, we're talking Christmas trees today. We are, yeah. You probably can't talk about one without the other

Ho ho, ho, Ron, we're talking Christmas trees today.

Ron: We are, yeah. I enjoyed researching this.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: Yeah. You were under the impression that I wasn't going to talk about Christmas trees.

Laura: Yeah, I thought you were talking about the science of coniferous and deciduous trees.

Ron: Right, I see. Because what you said in the messages earlier, you were like, I thought you were going to talk about deciduous trees.

Laura: I was like, well, uh, I think I got them.

Ron: Probably not.

Laura: But you probably have. You probably can't talk about one without the other, can you, really?

Ron: Well, you can and I might.

Laura: Aren't they like in. In comparison to one another kind of a thing?

Ron: No, uh, us. Uh, it's kind of like saying you couldn't talk about oranges without talking about apples, when actually they're just. Absolutely. Can.

Laura: Yeah. All right, all right. I think of deciduous trees as the main type of trees and coniferous as being the weirdos. Which ones are more common on planet Earth?

Ron: Oh, we'd love.

All right. For some reason I thought we'd do yours first. In several different ways

All right. For some reason I thought we'd do yours first. So. Actually it's more the other way around. Huh.

Laura: Huh.

Ron: In. In several different ways.

Laura: Um, maybe it's just because I'm usually surrounded by deciduous, you know.

Ron: Yeah. It's more to do with where we live because we live in lovely temperate areas.

Conifers are the largest terrestrial carbon sink on planet Earth

Um, but hang on, where's my bit of research on, um. Um. Hold, please. Call it. I've lost the bit that I want to say.

Laura: I was on holdtobooking.com yesterday and they had the weirdest, most unsettling hold music ever.

Ron: Do tell.

Laura: It was just like soundscape kind of stuff, you know? And you're like, guys, either answer the phone quicker or pay for some bangers because this is like ocean noises and like UFOs whizzing in and out. I didn't love it.

Ron: Weird. But no, Laura. So, um, tropical rainforests, um, and like. Yeah, deciduous trees have much higher biodiversity than conifers. But conifers are, uh, the largest terrestrial carbon sink on planet Earth. Oh, meaning. Yeah, that they. They represent more sort of biomass than, um, other types of tree.

Laura: So are Christmas tree farms really good for the environment then?

Ron: No, because you have the tree and then, you know, someone burns it or it rots. And the carbon, I mean, they're. They're neutral. Apart from like, the tree itself is neutral, obviously. But.

Laura: But I thought trees, like, took in more carbon when

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Laura: they were young and growing. You know, like an old tree is not doing as much as a young tree.

Ron: I don't think that's true. I think established trees and established forests taking a hell of a lot more carbon than new. Like, so why carbon offset things aren't like, one for one.

Laura: Right.

Ron: Okay, um, but let's, um. What are Christmas trees like? They're conifers. Okay.

Laura: Yes. Because they're cone shaped.

Ron: Yes. And they have pine cones.

Laura: Oh, my God. Is that true? I was just fucking about. Is that real?

Ron: Well, it's not because they're cone shaped.

Laura: Forget that.

Ron: It's because of the thing that I said.

Laura: Okay, so all. Oh, just. Yeah, okay. Yes.

Ron: What makes a conifer. A conifer is the cone is the pine cone.

Laura: Right. That's cool.

There's several different types that we associate with Christmas trees

Ron: There's several different types that we associate with Christmas trees. Um, I've got a longer list than I sleep.

Laura: Oh, I should have gotten the blue spruce. They're lighter.

Ron: Yeah, the blue spruce.

Laura: That's a quote from while you were sleeping. My favourite film of all time has blue needles.

Ron: Um, and it holds its needles better than the Norway spruce. The, ah, Norway spruce is the traditional Christmas tree.

Laura: Right.

Ron: Norway spruce is the guy that smells really strong, drops its needles like that. You know, you walk past in a shower. Um, it's the classic bright green with like the skinny needles. The skinny, yeah. Yeah.

Laura: You know, very much like the ones we used to have.

Ron: Yes. Yeah, I think, I think from. Yeah, like that's, that's the classic guy. Um, blue spruce, way bluer than I thought. I'm not sure I've ever seen a.

Laura: Blue spruce do m. They have like thicker and flatter needles.

Ron: Yes. And they hold those needles better than, uh, the Norway spruce. Then there's, um, the, uh, Nordman fir is another popular choice. Um, softer, darker green needles, but looks a lot like the Norway spruce, but.

Laura: Darker, holds its needles better.

Ron: Um, don't have info on that sort.

Laura: You have to imagine there's been a lot of like, engineering and breeding to get them to be the perfect in indoor tree.

Ron: Yeah. Um, you got to imagine. Now I'm surprised that you don't see like new crossbreeds and stuff coming out. Maybe you do, maybe you do, maybe you do.

Laura: But Christmas is one of those weird things where people don't want new and fancy, they want cultural and traditional, don't they?

Ron: Yeah. I mean, plastic trees get a lot of hate.

Laura: I have a plastic tree, if I'm honest.

Ron: I don't have a tree at all, if I'm being really honest with you. Um, and what I'm probably going to do in the festive season is just buy myself a new house plant that I'll have year round, but put it prominently for December.

Laura: Well, what you could do, Ron. So the very earliest, um, sort of recorded stuff about Christmas trees, way before even Christianity existed, was people would just decorate their house with bits of evergreens for the winter.

Ron: Yeah. Bringing about stuff, the spirit of nature inside and keep it safe in the winter. Right. Yeah.

Laura: So it was like a sort of. It was partly believed that they'd keep away witches and ghosts and illnesses which, let's face it, you need see disgusting. So there was winter solstice was on the 21st of December and you'd, um. And basically they thought that the sun was a God and then they'd be like, oh, he Gets ill around this time every year, so they'd bring in trees and stuff like that to make him feel better.

Ron: That's cute.

Laura: But I reckon it's also, it's probably like if you're living like, you know, BC your houses aren't exactly. What's the word? Not incubated. What's the word for keep cold out?

Ron: No, it's incubated.

Laura: Oh, uh, incubated. But you just want something to remind you of summer when people weren't dying every five minutes.

Ron: Yeah.

If you had to decorate your house with something to remind you of summer

Laura: So I thought of a question for you, Ron. If you had to decorate your house with something to remind you of summer in the winter, what would you do?

Ron: Coconuts.

Laura: You'd just hang coconuts around? Do you see coconuts a lot in the summer?

Ron: What's more summery than a coconut?

Laura: Well, I was thinking, what about like suntan lotion flavoured candles? That would smell great.

Ron: Would it? Do you like the smell of suntan lotion?

Laura: Yeah, everybody likes the smell of suntan lotion.

Ron: Do they?

Laura: Yeah. Smells like coconut.

Ron: It just reminds me of that bit in Always Sunny where Charlie drinks all that suntan lotion at the beach. Um, yeah, I think, um, coconuts or maybe sand.

Laura: Just fill your

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Laura: house with sand for the winter. I just think these are two things that you don't, you don't come near in your summers, Ron.

Ron: No, I don't really like coconuts, if I'm being honest with you.

Laura: Or grit.

Ron: No, I like to be clean and dry. Maybe. What about if I just wore board shorts all the winter?

Laura: Yeah. What if you hung up board shorts all around your walls to remind you of warmer times? Just pictures of knees and shins, ball.

Ron: Shorts and flip flops.

Laura: Yeah, beautiful. Okay.

Ron: And then there are two other types of Christmas tree that we, we generally get Douglas fir, that's the tree choice.

Laura: I've heard of that one, um, tree.

Ron: Of choice in the US more than Europe. And then the other one, um, was the Scotch or Scots pine, which I've heard of. But then I was goo. Because I, I got pictures of all of these so I could contextualise them and see. Oh yeah, I've seen one of those and stuff. But before couldn't find a picture of a Scots pine as a Christmas tree. Oh, now don't at me. I didn't look for very long, but m. Yeah, they seem, uh, you'd recognise them, you know, when you see, um, those pine trees or like conifers, but like they're not so good at holding on to the neat. Like any branches or whatever, low down. And they kind of just got like a scrub at the top. They get bendy like a bush on a stick. Yeah, that's the vibe of a Scots pied.

Laura: Okay, here's a Scots pine as a Christmas tree, Ron.

Ron: Yeah, that. Oh, very upward pointing branches. Is that maybe their thing? Yeah, not bad, not bad.

Ancient Egyptians used to decorate their house with evergreens

Laura: Um, did you know, Ron, that bringing evergreens in indoors was not limited to Europe?

Ron: Uh, assumed. Yeah.

Laura: What did you assume?

Ron: That it wouldn't just be Europe.

Laura: Oh, ancient Egyptians used to do it, Ron. They decorated their house with evergreens. So they celebrated the sun God Ra recovering after the solstice. And they'd bring in green palms and papyrus, papyrus leaves which were.

Ron: Incubated with peppers.

Laura: What is it called? Insulating. That's the word I was trying to get to. Um, they were symbols of victory, so they bring those indoors. Romans did it as well. I know they are Saturnalias. Yes, that was. Saturnalia was what they called the winter solstice. Um, Celts in northern Europe seem to have the same idea as well. And Vikings also did this. And, um, Vikings, um, honoured mistletoe in.

Ron: Particular because they were big kissers with the F kiss.

Laura: They loved Snoggin. Um, I guess, like, the thing is, you're like, whoa, that was really worldwide. Humans everywhere were doing it, like. But like, no offence to people living back then, but there probably wasn't a lot to decorate your house with. So I don't think it's that surprising that everybody had the same idea.

Ron: Also, you said it wasn't just limited to Europe. Named one place not in Europe and then four places in Europe.

Laura: Yeah, I said it wasn't just limited to Europe. Gave an example. Well, I bet other places were doing it. But Egypt's got the best records, hasn't it?

Ron: It's got good records. Yeah.

Laura: Yeah. Who's topping Egypt except the Romans, Mabes. But basically Egypt was Roman by this point.

Ron: But you've also got a. See, um, that they wouldn't. They wouldn't have seen Europe as the, um, centralised. They wouldn't have really considered Europe to be so much of a place. They'd have thought more in terms of the Mediterranean.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: And then Egypt and Rome doing it makes a lot of sense. Well, they wouldn't have really thought about the continent of Europe like that back then. They'd have more thought of like the power centres around the Mediterranean.

Laura: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So the two main power centres were doing it. But then if you think like the Vikings, you're talking hundreds of years after the Romans.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: So it's still going on. It hasn't died out.

Ron: It hasn't died out now, that's no surprise. We're still doing it today, Lauren. That's why we're talking about it.

Laura: And then according to English Heritage, Ron. English Heritage, yeah. They said by the late Middle Ages, almost all surviving church records include entries for the purchase of holly and ivy in the winter. So that started to specifically. And then Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly is a Welsh hymn or carol, which, uh, originated in the 16th century. So Holly and lots of other carols around them mention holly and ivy from really,

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Laura: really early doors. And then this bit interested me. Ron, I think you might like this from a scientific perspective. Um, again, English Heritage website said in the Victorian period, holly and fir garlands were strewn on the mantelpiece. And then Charles Darwin, writing from his home at down House in 1877, believed that a scarcity of bees in the spring had resulted in fewer berries on holly that winter. He wrote, we cannot decorate our Christmas hearths with the scarlet berries of the holly because bees were rare during the spring.

Ron: Interesting.

Laura: That is interesting, isn't it?

Ron: Yeah. Holly's a top tier, uh, Christmas plant.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: Handsome leaves.

Laura: Oh, beautiful.

Ron: I'm sad mom and dad got rid of that holly bush in the front garden.

Laura: Did they? Where was that?

Ron: Like, right out the front door, just to the right.

Laura: Oh, I never noticed it.

Ron: Um, there used to be a big holly bush there, but just Mum and Dad's like a bit of a boomer thing to just kill all the plants, get rid of the plants. More lawn.

Laura: I think it's a lot of effort, though, to keep up. A big garden full of plants.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: Like my garden, I find hard to keep up with. And it's tiny and there are no plants in it. There are fucking loads of plants. Wash your mouth out.

Ron: It's just astro turf. And dog.

Laura: The back garden is. There's so much dog out there right now, Ron. So much dog shit. Because we had Toby here, too. Giant ones and tiny ones. Oh, God.

All extant conifers are perennial woody plants, not extinct

Ron: And it's in this horrible little sun pit surrounded by.

Laura: Yeah, suburbia, man.

Ron: Uh, yeah, it's funny anyway, Laura, So conifers comes from the Latin compound of conus, meaning cone and ferro, to bear. So they're the ones that bear a cone. Ah.

Laura: Ah, Pine cones. It's all about the cones.

Ron: It's all about the cones. Um, all extant conifers, that means ones that are still alive, not extinct, are perennial woody plants, most of them being trees but some of them are shrubs now. They also all have something called secondary growth, which is something I had not heard of, um, before, but I thought was, um. Plants, uh, do primary and secondary growth. Primary growth is like the growth that they do at the top to go up and then secondary growth is like. Once I've grown that bit, then I get fatter, basically. And not all plants do the secondary growth bit. So, like, you know, like, um, a lot of non woody plants, you know, once they've grown, that's as thick as they'll be.

Laura: I basically only did the secondary bit.

Ron: Yes. You've got the body type of the red M M and you're married to the yellow.

Laura: Mm, yeah.

Ron: Um. Yeah. Um. Cedars are conifers, firs, cypresses, junipers, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces and yews.

Laura: Conifers are the famous graveyard tree, aren't they?

Ron: They're pedos, aren't they?

Laura: Yeah, but they're also like. They were. They were like, seen as special and sacred. And that's why you often see yew trees in graveyards.

Ron: Oh, I didn't know that. Um, they. None of them have leaves and they all have, um, uh, needles and whatnot. But there was more, um, variation in that than I thought. Take, uh, a look at this paste. Paste, I say.

Laura: Oh, that is cool. It looks like a cross between samphire, asparagus and seaweed.

Ron: Yeah. Oh, it is a bit sampy. Yeah. So that is the, um. Those are the. You wouldn't even really call them needles, but of the coprocess, they are called leaves. They're called scale leaves. Lawson cypress, that's called, um. Yeah, so most, um. Yeah, most have needles, but there is some variation, um, like that, um. They're quite cool. Maybe we'll post a picture. They have lots of different, um. Lots of different adaptations that make them very good at dealing with tough environments. So this will go from the shape of those leaves and kind of the makeup of those. They're very. They're not. They don't have loads of surface area. Um, uh, these leaves. Whereas, like, if you think of the leaf of a deciduous tree for content.

Laura: It'S

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Laura: all surface area.

Ron: It's all surface area and maximises that surface area. And then the winter they say, right, get rid of all the surface areas, we stop haemorrhaging water and energy and stuff and then they grow it all back. Whereas, um, coniferous trees are more of a sort of like, you know what, it's not a race. Moderate. All, um, Year is kind of their vibe. Um, they can completely close up all of their stomata. They're in lines or patches, so they can just close it when it's too dry or too cold. Um, and then even, um, their, like, biochemistry, their metabolism changes over the course of the year to help them in the winter.

Laura: Do you find it wild that both options have evolved to work? No, like, be full, full, full. Shed it. Regrow your entire, like, outer structure. That's fine, that's great, that's efficient, that's working. But also just steady, steady, steady, boys. Steadying your little bullet thing. Do it all year, quiet and slow. They're both great, but they're great in.

Ron: Different places, like, uh, the lovely temperate forests of, ah, you know, of northern Europe, like the uk. Um, the deciduous tree flourishes, you know, the oaks and whatnot. Um, but then you go to the tiger and you go further north, build conifers because they're better at that.

Laura: M. Does it affect the wood?

Ron: Yes. That's basically the difference between hardwood and.

Laura: Is it?

Ron: Yeah. Softwood are mainly pines, so that's conifers.

Deciduous trees grow slower during the winter, so they get denser

Laura: Yeah, they're soft woods.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: Okay. It feels like it should be the other way around.

Ron: No, it's, um. Yeah. Um, deciduous trees grow slower. Um, I believe so. Then put more time into it and then, um, you know, like the rings in a tree.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: It's because the growth slows during the winter and then you get more density of whatever is that makes the ring stand out. Oh, yeah. No, conifers are the softwood ones.

Kissing bows and mistletoe first appeared in England during Tudor period

Laura: Do you want to know about kissing, Ron?

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: So talk mistletoe. There's not like a distinct record of when kissing bows and mistletoe first sort of appeared in England, but it's definitely a popular tradition by the Tudor period. Um, or sort of bringing in these kissing boughs, they were called. So in the Georgian period, kissing boughs went real fancy, I guess, with everything in the Georgian period went fancy. So they'd. They'd have these, like, big bows that they'd put up and they'd decorate them with all sorts of brightly coloured stuff. Candles and ribbon and paper, roses and fruit and stuff.

Ron: And then the fear of putting a candle within two metres of a Christmas tree fills me with an existential terror.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: I don't understand how they. How, uh, everyone didn't die the first year.

Laura: Yep. Especially, like, it's been a bit in my show, like, the idea of toddlers existing. Like, we can't even put Christmas tree decorations on the bottom three feet. Of our tree because they will be removed by either the dog or the toddler and strewn around the house. So the thought of putting like fire in the flammable, dried out wood while you've got kids around, mad.

Ron: Yeah. And then like, you hear like, oh, fucking infant mortality was bad back in the day because they bur on the Christmas tree. Because he let them play with a fucking candle.

Laura: Yeah, stupid.

It's widely held belief that Martin Luther first added lighted candles to trees

I've got a bit about that actually, as we're here. Um, so did you know it's, well, this one website. Which one was this? I think it was history.com says it's a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. According to a common version of the story, Walking home one winter evening, Luther was awed by the stars twinkling amidst evergreen screens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles. I think that feels like, to me. But yes, that's one argument that doesn't seem true. But anyway, he might have popularised it. Yeah, Mabes. But he feels like he was so, like, not puritanical, because that's a different thing. But he was so fervent on the whole, like, bibles for everyone. Did he also have time to be like, banging about on what you should be doing with your trees?

Ron: I don't know.

Laura: He just feels like he's an easy person to hang stuff on.

Georgians had a tradition of kissing under the mistletoe

Anyway, back to mistletoe for just a second with these

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fancy boughs that the, uh, Georgians had. The tradition there was, you could pluck a berry from the bow. Ah. A gentleman could. And if you had a berry, you could go and kiss a lady on the cheek. Ooh, a bit saucy. And then when there were no berries left, you couldn't give any more kisses. So that was a fun little game that they used to play. So that could be the beginning of the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe.

Ron: Right. I don't really get it.

Laura: Well, the bear is on the thing and say, you know, girlfriend of the podcast is at this party and you've been fancying her for a long time and you want to go and give a cheeky kiss. You could steal a berry and go up to her and be like, whoops, I've got a berry.

Ron: Do I have to do it in secret?

Laura: I don't know. No. I think the berry allows you to be a bit raucous and sassy in front of people.

Ron: Okay.

Laura: I'm sure you could do it in secret, if you like. But I don't think you'd need a berry for that.

Ron: Yeah, that's fair. Uh, I just wonder because you said about, like, oh, once the berries are out, no more kissing. It was like, well, it seems like, you know, just Grant or someone is going to go and take all the berries at the beginning of the night. And then, because I've arrived fashionably late.

Laura: Well, you can't be fashionably late. If you want to do kissing.

Ron: I'll bring some berries in my pocket, I guess.

Laura: Smart, Ron. And then she'll be like, not only will she be kissing you, but you will look super sensuous because all of the woodland creatures are following you to the party.

Ron: Exactly.

Laura: Snow White of the Georgian era.

Ron: I think deciduous trees would be the A list celebrities

Ron: Now, going back to your point, Laurie, where you said that you thought you think of deciduous trees as kind of the main characters, and then, um.

Laura: Uh, I don't believe I said characters. I think that's you deciding that I think of trees as characters. But continue.

Ron: Is it wrong?

Laura: No.

Ron: I think if you were to think about the forest, deciduous trees would be the A list. Celebrities. And conifers would be, you know, like, when you go. When you watch, um, TV on a foreign home hotel in a foreign hotel and you see all of their celebrities.

Laura: Other way around, Ron. I think the conifers would be the celebrities because they're a bit more elusive. I'm not often walking through a coniferous forest.

Ron: I see. Okay.

Laura: I think they're, like the special elite and, like, your average. I mean, obviously, you've got, like, the shining hulk of the oak. Oh, what a masterpiece the oak is.

Ron: Yeah, but surely the oak is the, you know.

Laura: Okay, yeah, but he's a bit common to me. He's like a local celebrity.

Ron: Right. Sort of a Brian Blessed figure.

Laura: Is he a local celebrity?

Ron: But I mean, like, he's not, like.

Laura: I don't think, you know, he's a Bradley Walsh. You're not gonna. Not point him out, but you're also not gonna go up and ask for a photo with him. Whereas if it was George Clooney, you'd go over and, uh.

Ron: You think a pine tree is George Clooney? You'd go over if you saw George Clooney.

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: Really?

Laura: I'd want a photo.

Ron: Really?

Laura: Yeah, he's really famous and cool. I would go mad on my socials.

Ron: But I think, I guess, yeah, you have to monetize your life. I think for me, I kind of go the other way where, like, I'd get a picture with Bradley Walsh. Probably if I ran into him. But if I saw Clooney I'd let him park.

Laura: Why?

Ron: Because he's too famous to bother?

Laura: No, he's just so famous that he probably would just swish past you and if you didn't want to give a photo. Whereas Bradders is probably really nice and would stop and then everybody's ruining his day.

Ron: Yeah.

All of the world's tallest, thickest and oldest living trees are conifers

Anyway, this kind of leans into that theory then of conifers as the A list. Hollywood celebrities. Because all of the world's tallest, thickest, largest and oldest living trees are all conifers.

Laura: Yeah, they're just beefy and sleek. They feel so much more efficient too, shedding and regrowing every year. No.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: Um, so how long can they have a single pine fall? Can that last the whole of the tree's life?

Ron: I don't know. I guess not.

Laura: Pine needle.

Ron: Yeah. The tallest is the coast redwood. Do you want to hazard a guess?

Laura: Oh, um.

Ron: No you don't.

Laura: 60Ft.

Ron: No, wait, maybe no. 115 metres.

Laura: Okay, hang on, I'm, I'm converting. I'm converting.

Ron: There's 30 metres of 100ft. So like 3.

Laura: 300Ft. 115 metres in feet.

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Laura: Oh God, I can't type. Is this a dream?

Ron: 350Ft. Whoa.

Laura: Yeah. 378ft.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: Holy smackeroni, that is tall.

Ron: There have apparently been claims that um, a eucalyptus reached the height of 140 metres. Um, or a mountain ash. But um, not being uh, proven.

Laura: Wow.

Ron: The thickest tree is a Montezuma cypress. It is 11.4 metres in diameter.

Laura: Wait, what? Like the branches or just the trunk?

Ron: The trunk.

Laura: Shitting Christ. 11 metres.

Ron: I assume that is talking about the trunk there because.

Laura: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Because your average oak could have a spread of 11 metres.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: In the canopy. So that must be trunk. But that's like bigger than the width of this room. I'm in.

Ron: Yeah.

Laura: How long's my office? Probably seven or eight metres. Gee wizzy willikens.

Ron: They're known for their thick trunks.

Laura: I'd love to go to the giant redwood forest in California.

Ron: Yeah, well that's coming up. Um, uh, because, um. Where have you gone? Yeah. The largest tree by three dimensional volume is the giant sequoia. So the other one that we talked about before is taller but it's skinnier so it's not as big a tree. And then the oldest non clonal living tree. So some trees can kind of live forever because what they do is sort of when they start to die they kind of clone themselves and then grow again in the same spot.

Laura: Wow.

Ron: Um, but the oldest non clonal living tree, so same creature that it's always been, um, is the Great Basin Bristlecone pine. Do you want to hazard a guess as to how old the oldest one of those is?

Laura: Oh, God. It's gonna be really old, isn't it? Like been around since viking times. Like 1500 years old, 4700 years F. Yeah. Whoa. I want to look at this tree.

Ron: It's not going to be impressive in the way that you think. It's not like one of those jungle ones where the roots are boiling around. You wonder if it's any life at all when you see a bristle going behind.

Laura: Oh, yeah, that looks really dead. That looks like the sort of dead tree that you see in a, um, safari park type thing, you know, that they've left in near the giraffes.

Ron: It looks like the tree version of A Weekend at Bernie's where they're trying to get a piece of driftwood passing us alive.

Laura: It looks very much like what they might have based the Whomping Willow on, you know, in the film of the Harry Potter. It's all gnarly fingers and stuff. Does look epic, though. It barely looks like a tree. So where, where are the needles on that then? That just looks like trunk and branches to me.

Ron: Um, I don't know which one you're looking at, but a lot of the ones that. Ah. Did you Google specifically the oldest tree ever?

Laura: Yeah.

Ron: Hang on, let me get that. So I'm looking at the same thing.

Laura: Yeah, well, I think like Methuselah, it's called.

A Chilean tree is believed to be more than 5,000 years old

Ron: Well, if you see, if you're looking at the same picture as me, you see in like the background, there's one that's kind of just got leaves on a bit. I think it's kind of just a bit like that. Like it's so old, it just kind of grows some every now and again.

Laura: Right. Wow. Oh, that's rad. Where's that? In Chile? Yeah, it's in Chile, I think.

Ron: Uh, central California.

Laura: Oh, uh, we're looking at a different thing then.

Ron: Um. Oh, well, um. Yeah, pretty dope.

Laura: Oh. Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850year old grape basin bristlecone pinecone found in California. It's a survivor. There are no others that have had the opportunity to live for so long, said Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University in Chile. Centre for Climate science and resilience, who are part of the team measuring the tree's age. Fun. It's a, uh, Fitzroya cuprasoides, a type of cypress tree that is endemic to the south of the continent.

Ron: It's cool.

Laura: Yeah, Wild.

Ron: Yeah. So like when that thing was born. Yeah,

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Ron: like this, you know, pre, pre. The Greek, like Ancient Greece. Pre, Ancient Greece. Pre.

Laura: Man, I don't even know.

Ron: Yeah, when that thing was born, like we're talking, you know, Sumerian culture, like I think pre, pre. Even like Assyrians and, and Babylonians. Crazy.

Laura: Yeah. The beginning of the Bronze Age, I think, is that Crazy times, Neolithic revolution. Yikes. Okay, so we'll go from the oldest tree in the world. We'll use that as our jumping off point into actual Christmas trees.

So actual Christmas trees probably began in Germany, according to Ron

Ron. Yeah, so actual Christmas trees probably began in Germany. No surprise there. Germany Kings of Christmas. Um, there are records of people starting to bring in whole trees from the 16th century. And that to me is hilarious. I would love to be the first neighbours to come round for dinner and your friend has just put an entire fucking tree in their living room and.

Ron: Then it's just rammed to the gunnels with candles and bobs.

Laura: Well, not until Martin Luther has that walk home. But just, you know, life's hard. It's the 1500s. All you're doing is trying to keep the elements out of your north Germany Bavarian home. And then someone cuts down a bug infested tree and just brings it into the house. Wild. So trees started to come in. Hello, I will come down. Just let me finish talking to Uncle Ron and then I'll come down. So trees kicked off at this point. Ron. There were also a thing called Christmas pyramids. So basically you'd make like a wooden pyramid structure with different, um, levels on it. A bit like, like an Olympic medals pyramid kind of thing. You know, like a stepped pyramid. Yeah, that kind of thing. And then you decorate that with different decorations and candles and things. And then it kind of sort of became. People started bringing whole trees in where they had just been bringing boughs in. And then it's almost like the pyramid and the tree merged into one thing and you started to decorate the tree.

Ron: Um, it's funny because the idea of just having a bare tree is that.

Laura: Well, so the beginning of that, uh, is possibly. This is from Britannica encyclopaedia thing. It's possibly that there used to be a thing called the Adam and Eve play that was done around this time of year instead of the Nativity. Um, maybe. Yeah, that's Interesting. So it was a popular mediaeval play about Adam and Eve and there was a paradise tree that symbolised the Garden of Eden. And you'd one that had the fridge. Yeah. A fir tree hung with apples. Um, and so then this became a German tradition. You'd set up a paradise tree in your home on December 21st, um, which is the religious feast day of Adam and Eve, and they'd hang wafers on it for the. Like, the host.

Ron: I, um, think this speaks to sort of what we were saying about child mortality, because if there's not that many kids, then you can get away with, you know, Adam, Eve, snake, God.

Laura: Yes.

Ron: Whereas then, you know, we. More babies are reaching nativity age and then you got to get them shepherds and them angels.

Laura: Yeah. There's not many characters in the original play.

Ron: No.

Laura: As class sizes grew, religious traditions changed. Um, so, yeah, so by the sort of end of the 16th century, I think the Christmas pyramid and the Christmas tree and the paradise. The Christmas pyramid, sorry, and the paradise tree had merged to become just this one Christmas tree. So it's sort of symbolic of the Garden of Eden, this whole Christmas tree thing that we've got.

Ron: Interesting.

Laura: Um, and then, really, then. So that was Germany, that was all sort of happening and everywhere else is just still bringing in their bowels and stuff. Then it sort of becomes popular the world over. Um, there's kind of two branches of it. There's one, Victoria and Albert. Obviously, Albert's German and Victoria is German by descent. They popularise it in the uk. Um, and obviously the UK is colonial kings at the time. Um, you decorate the Victorian tree with toys, small gifts, candles, candies, popcorn strings and fancy cakes hung from the branches by ribbons and paper chains. But then also, you've got quite a lot of German settlement in parts of the US as well. So Pennsylvania is a big German colony. Um, so you've also got it sort of starting to spread across the US from the German settlements and then by anglicised sort

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Laura: of influence on the us. Um, and then my final thing really, is that artificial. Do you know when do you think artificial trees became a thing, Ron? Um.

Ron: M. You've said artificial and not plastic, so I'm going to guess the 1860s.

Laura: A little bit later, it was the 1930s. M. Artificial trees made of brush bristles were developed in the United States. And then in the 50s and 60s, there was mass production of aluminium and plastic trees. Oh, I'm guessing aluminium for the trunk, not aluminium needles, because that would be.

Ron: Horrendous, wouldn't burn from all the candles though.

Laura: True. That might melt, though. Low melting point. Aluminium, maybe.

Ron: I don't know.

Laura: Okay, that's it, Ron. That's my Christmas tree research.

Ron: Oh, thank you.

The earliest conifers appear during the late Carboniferous

Well, I've just got one last bit on, um, conifers themselves. And again, sort of you. Um, another thing that's almost kind of at the antithesis of thinking of deciduous ones is the. The stars or not the stars, but as like the main ones. Um, because, um, conifers are much, much older than leafing trees. So the earliest conifers appear during, uh, um, an age called the late Carboniferous. Well, the Carboniferous, and they um. In um, the Pennsylvanian, which is like the later era of that, which is over 300 million years ago.

Laura: Wow.

Ron: Um, so that is before the first dinosaurs. Um, that is only about like 120 million years after life really got going on land. Huh.

Laura: Huh.

Ron: Um, so they've been going a long, long time. Before that there were things called lycopod trees, which, yeah, sprouted up in um, the Devonian period when got going on land. So the first ever trees were lycopods. They were a lot like conifers, but they didn't have the pine cones, hence the difference between them.

Laura: Right.

Ron: And then during the late Carboniferous, conifers take over, um, because it's just a better way of seed dispersal, I presume.

Laura: Yeah. So we don't know what the lichenopod things did for.

Ron: No, they're still like a. Pods now.

Laura: Oh. Uh, how do they do seeds? Flowers?

Ron: No, flowers didn't evolve for.

Laura: Oh, yeah, because you need insects for flowers.

Ron: There were insects. They were insects before trees.

Laura: Oh, uh, um, just testing you.

Ron: Let's see how the lycopods, they're a type of vascular plant club members of the class are also known as club mosses. Fur mosses, spike mosses. Yeah, but they're not moss.

Laura: We talked about club moss.

Ron: Yeah, I've talked about club moss. They're. Club mosses are like a pod M. They're homosporous.

Laura: So does that mean they don't need to be fertilised?

Ron: I think so. Uh, yeah, I think they just kind of spore. I think. But we're not. This isn't. Next year we'll do lycopods.

Laura: Yeah. All right.

Ron: Conifers were largely, um. So the. The era before um, the um, dinosaur time was called the Permian. And there was a massive extinction event in between the Permian and the Triassic, which is sort of the start of the dinosaurs and um, conifers, they kind of sailed through that. They did all right. 90 of everything on the Earth died. But conifers were all they. They got through pretty much unchanged. Um, and then they were the dominant land parts of the Mesozoic, which is the era that the dinosaurs ruled for, which is the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous.

Laura: Right. Yeah.

Ron: And then it was, um, all the way through to the late Cretaceous, which is when you start seeing, uh, um, a decline in them because that's when flowers were evolved. Um, and then that's when the flowering plants start taking over from the conifers.

Laura: It's m. Just fascinating.

Ron: Yeah, I always.

There's debate about how long it took for the dinosaurs to die out

I always find it interesting. So girlfriend in the podcast and I did like, a fake birthday for me at the weekend. She wasn't there for my actual birthday. And then, um, when we were, um, chilling on the Sunday evening, we're watching Walking With Dinosaurs, which was my favourite, um, show when I was a kid. And I always find it interesting, like, you never think about the fact that it wasn't just the, uh, the animals that changed. Like, the plants were so different. Like, there wasn't grass the whole time that dinosaurs were around. And, like, there were no flowers and no flat trees and stuff. You know, like the classic the Land Before Time.

00:45:00

You wouldn't have the star leaves. They weren't there. Yeah.

Laura: I was thinking about this the other day because Tim and Tom were talking about how, you know, people go like, oh, the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, blah, blah, blah. And then. But Tom was saying he'd watched something about. But obviously they didn't just all die instantly. And the different debates about how long it actually took for them to die out? And, um, what killed the ones on the other side of the planet, like, was it ash cover that then killed the plants that then killed everything off? And I was like, oh. I think he said in that, like, there's debate that it could have taken like 15,000 years for them all to die out after that meteor crash. I've never heard anyone talk about that before.

Ron: Yeah, um, yeah, it's very true. And then also, like, especially with the extinction event at the end of the, um, Mesozoic, where, um, uh, the dinosaurs died.

Laura: Um.

Ron: Uh, there had been massive geological changes for millions of years before. Like, There was like 2 million years where this. Think, um, this might be wrong, but I think it. I think it was in India. Um, like, maybe even like the start of, like, around the Himalayas or something. But they were like, there was a huge series of, um, volcanoes. They just spent, like, 200,000 years just shitting, like, sulphur and stuff into the air. So things were already bad. And then an asteroid hit. Ah. And then. Absolutely. Like, you might have had some creatures that survived generations, but just with such dwindling numbers that then. Yeah, they all get wiped out.

Laura: Yeah, fascinating. Anyway, Merry Christmas.

Ron: Merry Christmas.

Laura: We'll be back next week talking about the north and South Pole.

Ron: Oh, yeah.

Laura: We're not doing a film Christmas one this year, Ron.

Ron: No. Maybe we should ditch the poles and do a film one. But we need to have a good idea.

Laura: All right. Next week is a surprise. Surprise, surprise. All right, Tinsels down.

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