John Bordsen

Special to USA TODAY

If Charlie Brown is looking for a top-of-the-line Christmas tree, he may want to head to western North Carolina. It is, after all, where the Fraser fir that is currently on display in the White House was cut.

It is the 13th time since 1971 that a Fraser from the Tar Heel State was selected for official presidential display in the Blue Room: In the 57 years formal records have been kept, no other state has provided as many for this purpose. And it has little to do with politics.

Annual selection is by the National Christmas Tree Association, a growers’ group that knows the fine points of this botanical beauty contest. And Frasers are a regional specialty. According to Jennifer Greene, executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, “99.4 percent of all Christmas tree species grown in this state are Frasers, and are from family-owned operations.”

Nationally, North Carolina ranks second in Christmas tree production (Oregon is first).

The Fraser is celebrated in many towns and cities across the state during the holiday run-up. Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate attraction in Asheville, uses a Fraser as the centerpiece for its Christmas festivities; the 35-foot fir is on display in the Banquet Room through Jan. 6.

What’s the tree’s appeal? “They have exceptional needle retention,” says Jeff Owen of NC State University’s College of Natural Resources. He’s the extension specialist whose responsibility is Christmas trees. “Needles are soft and dark green. Branches are supple, yet firm enough to support plenty of ornaments. With good horticultural practices, Frasers form a beautiful, cone-shaped tree with dense foliage. Frasers are really the ideal tree most people picture when they think of a Christmas tree.”

All that’s right, agrees Tim O’Connor, “but it is ultimately the consumers who make up their minds about what they want in their homes.” O’Connor, who lives in Denver, is executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association that meets every other year to decide which trees head to the White House. The Fraser from Newland, North Carolina, was selected at the 2017 confab, held in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He says the Fraser and the noble fir – native to the Pacific Northwest – have the characteristics the public seeks.

Botanically, there’s nothing new about Frasers doing well in the Carolina mountains. “Frasers are native to several peaks in the Appalachians and Smoky Mountains,” Owen says. “Essentially, they’re the survivor population from the last Ice Age.

“Most of the native populations are above 5,000-feet elevations. The first trees harvested were on mountain tops and were 30 to 40 feet. The top 6 or 7 feet were cut and sent to places like Atlanta. Their appeal as Christmas trees created a transition from forestry to farming and horticulture.”

Huge pine forests once dominated the state landscape and powered its furniture industry. There are still large and small nurseries in every county of the state. But the Fraser does better on cool slopes steep enough to avoid drainage problems. Harvested, state-grown Frasers are shipped to other states and countries.

Owen says more than half the state’s seasonal choose-and-cut farms are in western North Carolina, and are open to the public through late December.

Counties that are full-tilt for Fraser Christmas trees are in the far northwest – the mountain-border counties of Ashe, Allegheny, Avery, Watauga and Mitchell – or are south of Asheville (Jackson and Transylvania counties).

All these counties are linked by the peak-riding Blue Ridge Parkway. Interested but urbane travelers may want to opt for seeing live Frasers at the North Carolina Arboretum, in Asheville. It is open throughout the year, but through Dec. 31, the state facility offers a “Winter Lights” display featuring after-dark illumination of its various conifers.

But Owen and Greene say hitting the back roads of Fraser-growing counties is the best way to capture an IMAX “Polar Express”-type of majesty on a drive through steep, pastoral valleys.

Huge stands of Frasers look prime in whatever season you visit. Owen notes that large native Fraser stands are prime throughout the year in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and at Grandfather Mountain State Park, on a stunning peak off the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Linville.

Just be aware that your interest can rise as winter approaches: The other visual cue for the holiday season – blankets of snow – can snarl or close mountain roads, parkways and interstates in these parts.