Visual Lego Tree Helper
Welcome to the Visual Tree Helper. Here you can see the many types of trees Lego™ produced.
The left columns show each version of the trees. The next column is a description of
the tree. There are five styles of trees shown:
painted trees,
Samsonite™ trees,
granulated trees,
round trees, and
red trees.
I welcome any additional pictures provided by readers.
A N/A image means that I do not have a picture of that version, although that version may
exist. The letters on each picture credit the contributor of the picture.
Any questions, additions, corrections, or comments may be directed to Clark.
Lego Painted Trees
Painted trees were produced from the 1950's through the early 1970's. They
appeared in two base versions and at least 2 paint variations. The first version
has a flat base. These flat bases were meant to be used with the flat printed town plan
boards. The second version has a hollow base. These were meant to be placed over
studs of the new base bricks which replaced the town plan boards.
Original versions of the trees appeared with a light green painting, which changed
to dark green later during production. In 1960, a new set of trees appeared with
the same flat base and dark green paint. In 1965, an updated version of trees
appeared with hollow bases.
All versions were painted at the factory, probably by hand.
Similar unpainted trees were produced by
Samsonite™.
Painted trees were replaced by
granulated trees.
Samsonite™ Lego Trees
Samsonite™ was the licensed producer and distributor of Lego™ in the U.S. and Canada during the
1960's and early 1970's. They did not distribute the
painted trees.
Instead, they made their own trees. They only made two types trees: the bush and the pine.
These are unpainted and a different color green than a normal Lego brick.
While the painted trees were updated to hollow bottoms, the Samsonite trees just recieved feet.
The feet slide inbetween the studs of a baseplate. The footed parts are made of a lighter
green plastic than the original flat bottom parts.
By the time
granulated trees arrived, Samsonite was no longer distributing in
the U.S., and Lego included granulated trees in their U.S. market releases.
Lego Granulated Trees
Granulated Trees replaced
painted trees in the early 1970's.
These are flat trees with granules of green plastic glued to them.
The result is a more 'life-like' 3-dimensional tree.
There are 2 types of granules attached to the trees. The first is a large cube-shaped granule. The
second is a smaller tube-shaped granule. Any information about the origin or order of the
differences is grealy appreciated. Granulated trees were replaced by
round trees after a relatively short production.
Lego Round Trees
Round Trees replaced
granulated trees in the late 1970's.
They are solid plastic, round shaped without paint. They have ridges of plastic
to simulate the leaves. Early versions of these trees used a very stiff plastic,
while later versions were made of a much softer plastic that bends easily. Except
for rounding of the tips to make them safer, the basic design of these trees has
not changed since their introduction almost 30 years ago.
Several additions were made to the line. Broad bush pieces with no trunks replaced
the granulated bushes. A new bush extension piece made even larger plants. The
size of trees also grew in both directions. A very tall cypress was added to the
line, and has since been retired from production. On the other end, a very small
pine tree was introduced.
Red Lego Trees
Red versions of trees sometimes appear on the collector market. Red samples of parts are made to test the molds. They were done in the most common color of plastic, red, for economic reasons. These trees were probably acquired by an employee, or sold as factory seconds without regard to their rarity. To date, red trees have never appeared in an official Lego set. There are many parts with known red test versions on the collector market.
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