Yorkshire's original mulberry bush shortlisted at '˜tree Oscars' (like the real ones but with more wooden acceptance speeches)

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

A winner for each category will be selected by a public vote and they will go on to compete in the European tree of the year contest. Shortlisted trees in England include a mulberry bush at Wakefield Prison 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.

England’s nominated trees also include rare elms, the
tree on Hadrian’s Wall which featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the dying original Bramley apple tree from which all other Bramley trees come.

Scotland’s shortlist includes the last remaining tree from the Birnham oakwood, whose advance, it is foretold, will vanquish Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, and a sycamore which has “eaten” objects including a bicycle after growing through a blacksmith’s workshop. Trees making the shortlist in Wales include an 800-year-old oak which has witnessed the rise of Dinefwr Castle, Carmarthenshire.