The Scots pine is the quintessential Kempen tree

After the last Ice Age, the Scots pine, together with the birch, was one of the first types of tree to recolonise our region. As it got warmer, the Scots pine was replaced by deciduous tree species arriving from the south. The pine probably disappeared from our region for many hundreds of years.
In the 16th and 17th century the Scots pine came back to this area via Germany, Diest and Breda. Adriaen Ghys, forester to Amalia Van Solms, sowed the first Scots pines in 1667 in de Grotenhousbos forest. His headstone in Vosselaar churchyard has the following inscription:
Here lies buried the worthy Adriaen Ghys, forester who sowed the first pine tree in Grootenhoutbosch forest, who died on 8th October 1676.

It was a great advantage that the pine tree thrived and grew rapidly on the sandy Kempen soil. Influenced by Austrian empress Maria Theresia, Scots pines were planted on a large scale in 1772. More tax was payable on heathland that was unused. For the first time, the Scots pine was planted and the heath areas were exploited on a large scale.
The tree remained popular in Kempen even after this period. It turned out to be highly valuable as support timber in the coal mines and firewood for the Kempen brick factories. The economic role of the Scots pine has declined in recent times. Increasingly, forests are reshaped into open terrain or mixed forests. Will the Scots pine continue to help define the character of our sandy Kempen landscape? Only the future will tell...