I didn't post about it
last September when the "Sycamore Gap" tree - a tree growing in a sheltered dip along Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland - was cut down by vandals, or about the outpouring of grief and
call for a reset in Britain's relationship to the natural world it provoked. (It was in fact a
non-native tree* planted
not that long ago in a landscape that had long been deforested.) But I can't resist posting
now as efforts to give it a second life proceed.
Material from the Sycamore Gap tree was cultivated using a variety of techniques, according to the National Trust. Experts at the center used “budding,” in which a single bud from the original tree is attached to a rootstock of the same species, and two forms of grafting, which involves a cutting from the tree and a rootstock being joined. These techniques are designed to create genetically identical replicas of the original tree, the organization said.
Meanwhile, the center’s team is also working on growing seeds harvested from the tree — several dozen of which are now sprouting, the trust said.
There's hope also that the tree stump itself will regrow, although it will take two to three years to see if that happens. It's interesting to consider the various kinds of afterlife the tree might experience, though "afterlife" may be the wrong word. Back when I was in college philosopher Derek Parfit wrote a book called Reasons and Persons that, through thought experiments like my brain being placed in someone else's body, challenged the idea of "personal identity" used in metaphysics and moral philosophy. Identity is always gappy!
*Note that this
article uses an AI image!
