Types of Christmas trees — and where to cut each one

Before the species, the family, because it tells you most of what you need: how the tree feels, how it holds ornaments, and roughly where it can grow. You can identify all five from a single needle.

Flat, soft needles growing singly from the twig. Pull one off and it leaves a smooth round scar; try to roll it between finger and thumb and it won’t, because it is flat. The cones stand upright on the branches.

Soft single needles like a fir’s, but it is a genus of its own. The giveaway is the cone, which hangs down and has three-pointed bracts poking out between its scales.

Needles that are four-sided, so they roll easily between finger and thumb, and sharp at the tip. Each sits on a tiny woody peg, which stays on the twig when the needle falls.

The easiest to recognise: long needles growing in bundles held together at the base. Count them. Scotch and Virginia pine have two to a bundle, Monterey usually three, and white pine five.

No needles at all in the usual sense: the foliage is tiny overlapping scales packed onto flattened, feathery sprays. This is what the South grows, because a fir will not take the heat.

Balsam fir is the most fragrant: the industry’s own guide calls it “among the most fragrant of all species”. Concolor fir is the surprise — it smells of citrus, almost of orange, and nothing else on a lot smells like it. Virginia pine is the richest and pineyest, and the one most Texas farms grow. The two best-selling trees in America, Fraser and Douglas fir, sit in the middle. At the other end, Nordmann fir and the Leyland and Murray cypresses have almost no smell, which is exactly what some households want.

The smell is terpenes, aromatic compounds in the resin that the tree makes to defend itself, and the blend differs by species. There is no scientific ranking of trees by smell yet: a four-year, $7.4 million USDA-funded project at North Carolina State University is still working out which blends people prefer. And whatever the species, the scent fades as the tree dries, so a tree cut that morning out-smells one cut weeks ago. That is the biggest difference you can make, bigger than the choice of species.

• North Carolina is Fraser fir country: every farm we list there grows it. For anything else in the state, go to Shady Rest, which grows Nordmann, Korean, Turkish, concolor and Canaan fir as well as white pine and blue spruce, one of the widest ranges of any farm we list.
• Pennsylvania has as wide a choice as anywhere on this site. In Lancaster and York you can cut Douglas, concolor, Canaan, Korean and Fraser fir, white pine and blue spruce, and even a Leyland cypress at Miller’s.
• New Jersey grows much the same range as Pennsylvania — Fraser, Canaan, concolor and Douglas fir, blue and Norway spruce, white pine — and Evergreen Valley in Washington, NJ, is the one farm in the east we list where you can cut a Scotch pine. Its farms also open earliest: Dupras’ in Mays Landing from 24 October.
• Washington is where the noble, grand and Nordmann firs on southern lots are grown, and the one state on this site where you can cut them yourself. Veley Farm near Spokane has nine species, balsam fir and Scotch pine among them, the most of any farm we list.
• Texas cannot grow a fir at all. What you cut there is Virginia pine or cypress — Leyland, Murray or Arizona. Fraser, noble and Nordmann fir are on sale at Texas farms too, but always pre-cut and trucked in.

That last point is worth more than any species comparison. A tree that grows where you live was cut the day you bought it. A fir on a southern lot was cut weeks ago, a long way north, and has spent the time since on a lorry.

What each tree looks like and where it is grown are the Real Christmas Tree Board’s own words, from its Tree Guide, read on 16 Oct 2026 and quoted rather than paraphrased. The needle tests are standard botany. Where the Board says nothing about a tree, this page doesn’t fill the gap.

Which farms grow which tree was read off each farm’s own listing on this site, one by one, and those listings come from the farms’ own websites. Where a farm sells a species both ways and doesn’t say which, it is marked that way rather than guessed. What a farm grows can change from year to year, so if you have a particular tree in mind, ask before you drive out.

• Types of Christmas treesyou are here
• Fraser fir vs Douglas fir vs balsamthe three big firs
• Virginia pine vs Leyland cypressthe southern trees
• How long a tree lastsand how to keep it
• Christmas card photoslight, outfits, farm rules
• Tree size calculatorwhat height fits your ceiling
• What a tree costsevery price list we hold
• When farms openevery 2026 date
• North CarolinaFraser fir country
• Pennsylvaniathe widest choice
• Texaspine and cypress
• New JerseyNorth to South Jersey