Who’ll branch out as tree of the year?

PERTHSHIRE’S ancient Birnham Oak, immortalised in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, has been shortlisted for the ‘tree of the year’.

Shortlists featuring 28 of the UK’s finest trees have been unveiled by the Woodland Trust, from almost 200 nominations, as it seeks to find a tree of the year for england, Wales, Scotland and northern Ireland.

A winner for each country will be selected by a public vote and they will go on to compete in the european tree of the year contest.

One of the six Scottish contenders includes the Bicycle Tree in Stirlingshire, which dates back to the 1800s. The impressive sycamore sprouted up near the site of a former blacksmith’s shop in Brig O’Turk in the Trossachs.

As is grew it gobbled up everything in its path, with an anchor and a horse’s bridle among the items to have disappeared into its trunk.

A set of handlebars sticking out of the bark, all that remains to be seen of a rusty old bicycle, has made the tree an unexpected local attraction.

Shortlisted trees for england include a mulberry bush at a prison in Yorkshire which is thought to have been the origin of the nursery rhyme Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, played by female prisoners with their children.

There are also rare elms, the famous sycamore on Hadrian’s Wall which featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and the dying Bramley apple tree from which all other Bramley trees come.

The winning tree in each country will get a £1,000 grant for a health check or celebratory event.