\n It led to the tree becoming a social media sensation and named in September as the Woodland Trust\u2019s UK Tree of the Year 2025.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now there are efforts to spread its branches even further and have it acknowledged as one of Europe\u2019s best loved trees.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since 2011 countries across Europe have competed to have their most prized trees recognised for their role in enriching the lives of the people around them, often as beloved features of the landscape, or because their enduring presence is a reminder of the changing world around them.\n<\/p>\n
\n Among last year\u2019s European Tree of the Year candidates was the Skippinish Oak, the 400-year-old tree standing in a clearing within a Lochaber spruce plantation.\n<\/p>\n
\n As well as its impressive stature and history, it\u2019s one of the largest in the region and plays a crucial part of an ecosystem that hosts diverse lichens including the rare black-eyed Susan, seldom found outside the west of Scotland.\n<\/p>\n
\n Others included a 150-year-old fig tree, the Lovers Banyon, in the Portuguese city of Coimbre which was planted by an aristocratic tree collector as the result of seed exchanges with the Sydney Botanical Garden, and a huge white acacia known as the Witness of Seven Generations growing in the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ash tree has survived for 170 years on one of Glasgow’s best known streets (Image: David Treanor)\n<\/p>\n
\n It tells a story of changing borders and evolving history, having stood solid while six different states took control of the area: Austria-Hungary, WUPR, Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Germany, Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 2025 European winner was a beech tree in a historic park in Poland\u2019s Dalkowskie Hills, prized for its red heart-shaped leaves and as a focal point for gatherings.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now it\u2019s hoped the Argyle Street ash tree, in its distinctly urban setting near a Lidl car park and overshadowed by a city tenement, can be recognised for the imprint it has left on generations of Glaswegians.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Argyle Street ash is thought to have been planted in the 1850s. (Image: Colin Mearns)\n<\/p>\n
\n David Treanor, Consulting Arborist\u00a0at Tree Wise Urban Forestry<\/a>, says it deserves wider recognition.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cOf all the thousands of\u00a0trees\u00a0I\u2019ve encountered in over 15 years this one has taught me the most.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is a very Glaswegian\u00a0tree, defying adversity of its urban history and now of ash dieback.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is a survivor and a symbol of hope for what can be if it is allowed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n