June 2026: The new intake, Part 1

After six or seven years at nursery, 49 eager little youngsters have just graduated to Year 1 in Big Tree School, where they'll learn to live independently on the streets. Say hello to our latest intake of trees for Herne Hill. They'll need lots of support until autumn 2028, so if there's a sapling near you please make sure it's getting enough water. That's the key to a long and healthy life.

That total of 49 is made up of 33 different species, many of which are new to Herne Hill. But rather than listing them alphabetically, by street, by leaf shape or any other shared features we're taking a different approach in this blog: classifying and illustrating them according to what are called taxonomic principles. Taxonomy in the biological sense is the science of categorising and grouping organisms by their common features, a system established by the eighteenth-century Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus. It never hurts to learn a bit of tree science if you're keen on trees, and taxonomy is central to that knowledge.

Credit: Carolus Linnaeus. Line engraving by J.B. Compagnie after F. Bonneville. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Now this all takes a bit of explaining, so we'll do the dull blackboard stuff now and leave the pretty pictures of our new trees for Part 2.

Families, genera and species

All trees are divided into botanical families with common ancestors, linked by physical features such as the structure of their flowers. So any plants with rose-like flowers, including cherries and hawthorns, belong to the Rosaceae family. Likewise all beeches and oaks belong to the Fagaceae.

Stepping down one rung on the taxonomic ladder we come to the genus (plural genera), which groups trees in the same family that share certain characteristics. Here we find Prunus for cherries, Crataegus for hawthorns, Fagus for beeches and Quercus for oaks.

The genus then narrows into individual species. Combining the genus and the species gives us the two-part (binomial) system of naming plants and animals devised by Linnaeus and still in use over 200 years later. The first part of the name - like Prunus or Quercus - is the genus. The second part is the individual species, like avium to single out the wild cherry from other cherries, plums and almonds, and robur to distinguish the English oak.

There are of course still more variants that you can tag on to the end of the two-word name to identify naturally occurring varieties or artificially created cultivars, but the basic architecture is not far removed from the original Linnaean method. And having every name written in universally understood botanical Latin makes sure that every horticulturist, researcher, grower and consumer around the world can be certain of what they're planting, studying or simply admiring.

The way we've ordered our new trees for this blog is pretty much the same as you'll find in any decent tree guide. The gymnosperms - trees considered more ancient and more primitive - are listed first. These are mostly conifers, or cone-bearing trees. Then come the more highly developed angiosperms, or broadleaf trees, whose seeds are carried inside a fruit. So if you want to look up more information about the plum yew, for example, you'll find it near the beginning of the book. The strawberry tree, though, will be very near the end. That saves a lot of thumbing through the pages, although classifications are bound to change in future as genomics adds a new level of precision.

Overview

You can find a table listing all the newly planted trees from the 2025-26 season on this website. Here are the numbers broken down street- by-street:

• Danecroft Road: 8 new trees

• Burbage Road: 5 new trees

• Frankfurt Road: 5 new trees

• Sunray Avenue: 5 new trees

• Beckwith Road: 4 new trees

• Hollingbourne Road: 4 new trees

• Half Moon Lane: 3 new trees

• Herne Hill: 3 new trees

• Ruskin Walk: 3 new trees

• Elmwood Road: 2 new trees

• Red Post Hill: 2 new trees

• Carver Road: 1 new tree

• Elfindale Road: 1 new tree

• Stradella Road: 1 new tree

• Warmington Road: 1 new tree

• Wyneham Road: 1 new tree

Flowers on 'Brenelia' Portuguese laurel, Wyneham Road

And here are the trees broken down by numbers:

• Arbutus unedo (Strawberry tree): 7 trees

• Crataegus monogyna (Common hawthorn): 3 trees

• Prunus 'Amanogawa' (Flagpole cherry): 3 trees

• Amelanchier lamarckii (Snowy mespil): 2 trees

• Crataegus x prunifolia (Broad-leaved cockspur thorn): 2 trees

• Prunus lusitanica 'Brenelia' (Portugal laurel ‘Brenelia’): 2 trees

• Prunus x yedoensis (Yoshino cherry): 2 trees

• Sorbus torminalis (Wild service tree): 2 trees

• Acer campestre 'Elegant' (Upright field maple): 1 tree

• Acer ginnala (Amur maple): 1 tree

• Acer griseum (Paperbark maple): 1 tree

• Betula nigra (Black birch): 1 tree

• Carpinus betulus 'Lucas' (Columnar common hornbeam): 1 tree

• Cedrus libani (Cedar of Lebanon): 1 tree

• Celtis australis (Southern nettle tree): 1 tree

• Cephalotaxus harringtonia (Japanese plum yew): 1 tree

• Crataegus x lavallei (Hybrid cockspur thorn): 1 tree

• Cupressus sempervirens 'Pyramidalis' (Italian cypress): 1 tree

• Juglans nigra (Black walnut): 1 tree

• Koelreuteria paniculata (Pride of India or Golden rain tree): 1 tree

• Laburnum x watereri 'Vossii' (Voss's laburnum): 1 tree

• Lagerstroemia indica 'Violacea' (Violet crape myrtle): 1 tree

• Magnolia kobus (Northern Japanese magnolia): 1 tree

• Malus 'Evereste' (Evereste crab apple): 1 tree

• Pinus nigra Austriaca (Austrian pine): 1 tree

• Platanus x hispanica (London plane): 1 tree

• Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' (Black cherry plum): 1 tree

• Sorbus aria 'Magnifica' (Compact whitebeam): 1 tree

• Sorbus ulleungensis 'Olympic Flame' (Ulleung Island rowan 'Olympic Flame'): 1 tree

• Sorbus x thuringiaca (Bastard service tree): 1 tree

• Styphnolobium japonicum 'Regent' (Japanese pagoda tree): 1 tree

• Tilia euchlora (Caucasian lime): 1 tree

• Tilia platyphyllos (Large-leaved lime): 1 tree

• Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii' (Weeping Camperdown elm): 1 tree

  
  

New shoots, known as 'growth candles', on Austrian black pine, Sunray Avenue

Some thoughts on selection

Before we look more closely at each new tree, here are some observations on this year's crop. Let us know what you think about the issues we've raised. There's a contact form here.

First, there's a welcome variety of species - 33 in all - which is great for promoting biodiversity. The UK needs more pollinating insects, which in turn feed our diminishing bird populations. There are seven native species on the list - the common hawthorn, field maple, whitebeam, wild service tree, hornbeam, large-leaved lime and wych elm - which is good news for our at-risk native creatures.

Having a blend of natives, European trees and exotics from further afield strengthens our resilience against new pests and diseases and the threat of intense heat. It's a big contrast to the eighties and nineties, when there was a much narrower range being planted in Herne Hill, especially chanticleer pears, ginkgos, Himalayan birches and American sweet gums.

Second, we're pleased with the focus on trees that can resist heat and drought and cope with the rapidly warming climate. Almost two-thirds of the species planted (21 trees) are drought-tolerant. Here's a table giving the names:

Strawberry tree	Common hawthorn	Broad-leaved cockspur thorn
Wild service tree	Field maple	Paperbark maple
Hornbeam	Cedar of Lebanon	Nettle tree
Plum yew	Hybrid cockspur thorn	Italian cypress
Pride of India/Koelreuteria	Crape myrtle	Austrian pine
London plane	Cherry plum	Whitebeam
Bastard service tree	Japanese pagoda tree	Caucasian lime

Dark red leaves of black cherry plum, Elfindale Road

Finally, there's a good mix of sizes, including a number of trees that will eventually grow pretty tall, like the cedar, the cypress, the plane, the pine, the pagoda tree and the limes. But we've noticed that when the big London planes that define Herne Hill reach the end of their lives they're sometimes replaced by much smaller species, which can look incongruous. Also quite a few of the newcomers have a narrow, ascending profile, either naturally or by breeding, among them the flagpole cherry, the cypress, the 'Stricta' cultivar of the hawthorn, the Portugal laurel, the hornbeam and the field maple.

There's obviously limited pavement space in Herne Hill, so some 'fastigiate' (upright) trees make sense. But given that we've just experienced the hottest May and June temperatures ever in the UK there's a parallel need for trees with broader crowns to cool our streets and houses. A shady tree outside your front door is kinder to the environment than an air conditioner.

Click here to read Part 2, with photos and descriptions of the class of '26, arranged by family, genus and species.