LEGEND says it was planted by Mary Queen of Scots during a visit to Cumbernauld Castle, the family home of one her ladies-in-waiting.
More than 450 years on, the sweet chestnut named Queen Mary's Tree, now in the North Lanarkshire new town of Cumbernauld, is in the running to become Scottish Tree of the Year.
Six trees have been nominated for The Woodland Trust Scotland's competition, with the winner going forward to compete for the title of European Tree of the Year 2015.
Other nominees include Scotland's oldest tree, the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire; The Kissing Beech on the Kilvarock Estate in Inverness-shire; and the Clachan Oak at Balfron. Lady's Tree at Loch of the Lowes and the Gowk Tree at Moffat complete the shortlist.
Carol Evans, director of the Woodland Trust Scotland, said: "Tree of the Year is all about finding trees that are at the heart of local communities. By sharing stories and encouraging people to value them we can raise awareness of the need to protect these trees."
Votes can be cast until October 26 at woodlandtrust.org.uk/scottishtree.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article