Rescued seeds and twigs of the famous Sycamore Gap tree, mysteriously cut down last year, have begun to grow at a secret nursery in Devon, according to the BBC.
The sycamore became a famous landmark in a gap in Hadrian’s Wall, having been planted in the late 1800s. Millions once visited the sycamore tree, the gap ranking as one of Britain’s most photographed spots.
[Image: Tomorrow Never Knows, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14987516]
In an apparent act of vandalism, the very old tree was hacked down last year. Police are still investigating what happened, and two men remain on bail.
Just a stump is now left. If it is healthy, a new tree could eventually grow there.
However, BBC climate and science reporters Harriet Bradshaw and Georgina Rannard report that new life has sprung from the rescued seeds and twigs of the fallen tree.
The young plants are in historic company in a high-security greenhouse ‘somewhere in Devon’, which guards genetic copies of some of the UK’s most valuable plants and trees.
Its hall of fame includes copies of the apple tree that Sir Isaac Newton said inspired his theories on gravity, and a 2 500-year-old yew that witnessed King Henry VIII’s relationship with Anne Boleyn in the 1530s.
[Image: Wandering wounder, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138339918]