Trent Preszler

Fascinating thing is that Christmas trees are the same species that if you just let them grow, they'll be 100 feet tall and can be called lumber.

They're just raised differently.

So the cultural practices on Christmas tree farms are fine tuning those trees to make them look good for Christmas.

It's so many things.

First of all, the main difference, which is rooted in the name, obviously, is that they don't lose their foliage in the winter.

So they're extremely winter hardy, and they've evolved this kind of strange conical shape, which is different from all other trees.

And in part, that's because they grow in the northern climates where there's a lot of snow, and that kind of helps deflect snowfall.

Another fascinating thing about their shape, the identifiable Christmas tree shape of an evergreen,

is also related to capturing as much light as possible.

They grow so far north that there's often, in the wintertime, you know how the sun kind of shines low in the sky?

So you get a lot of side light instead of overhead light.

So by having that pyramidal shape, they're able to absorb a lot of light from the sides in addition to overhead.

But they are tough as nails.

These trees grow in the most inhospitable climates.

I compare them to the botanical equivalent of city pigeons.

They can survive on a rock ledge clinging to life with almost nothing.

And they're also prehistoric.

They are some of the first plants that appeared in the fossil record hundreds of millions of years ago.

We have a vague idea.

So there were pagan rituals associated with the winter solstice in ancient history and people would bring in evergreen boughs and evergreen trees from outside as kind of a talisman against