Scientists try to save Sycamore Gap tree

For more than 100 years, an enormous sycamore tree flourished in a dip between two rolling hills in England’s Northumberland National Park, its dense, leafy canopy becoming a widely recognized feature of the grassy landscape.

Then, one day in September, the beloved arboreal landmark known as the Sycamore Gap tree was reduced to a stump — chopped down in what local authorities said was “a deliberate act of vandalism.”

But while many mourned, scientists sprang into action, salvaging seeds and cuttings from the felled tree and spiriting the valuable material to a conservation centre at an undisclosed location where experts care for some of the country’s rarest and most historically significant plants.

Five months later, efforts to cultivate the material appear to be paying off. The National Trust, the conservation charity that operates the centre and cares for the land the tree stood on, recently announced that the seeds and other cuttings are “beginning to ‘spring into life.’”

“These techniques, delivered with a remarkable degree of care and precision by our conservationists, are providing a legacy for this much-loved tree,” Andrew

Jasper, the trust’s director of gardens and parklands, said. “And while there’s a way to go before we have true saplings, we’ll be keeping everything crossed that these plants continue to grow stronger and can be planted out and enjoyed by many in the future.”

The Sycamore Gap tree — made famous, in part, by the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves — was planted in the 1800s next to a portion of Hadrian’s Wall, a historic rock barrier that once marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire’s province of Britannia.

There it grew, largely undisturbed for decades. That is, until late September.

Authorities have made at least four arrests in connection with the incident.

Within hours of the tree coming down, scientists with the National Trust were onsite, along with members of the Northumberland National Park Authority. The conservation group rescued seeds and cuttings from the tree, sending the delicate material to the plant centre.

Experts 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.