Sycamore Gap Tree

It wasn't just a tree: why it feels so bad to lose the iconic Sycamore Gap tree and others like it

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The famous Sycamore Gap tree was felled last week, prompting global expressions of sorrow, anger and horror.

Key Points:

The famous Sycamore Gap tree was felled last week, prompting global expressions of sorrow, anger and horror.
But for many, the tree felt profoundly important.
That is, they contribute to ontological security – our sense of trust that the world and our selves are stable and predictable.

What makes a tree iconic?

This sacred fig would become known as the Bodhi Tree.
U2’s hit 1987 album The Joshua Tree has inspired fans to seek out the tree on the cover in the United States’ arid southwest – a potentially dangerous trip.
The location of the world’s tallest tree – a 115-metre high redwood known as Hyperion – is kept secret for its protection.
The death of the enormous tree – 87 metres tall, with a 19 metre girth – drew “national and international” media attention.

What is it to lose a tree?

If your favourite tree in your street or garden dies, you mourn it – and what it gave you.
But we mourn at a distance too – the Sycamore Gap tree was world-famous, even if you never saw it in real life.
As one interviewee, Leon, told me:
These places should be left alone, because in 10,000 years they could still be there.
Read more:
Sycamore Gap: what the long life of a single tree can tell us about centuries of change

Loss of connection

It’s more than okay to talk about what this does to us – about how the loss of this thread of connection makes us grieve.
It is useful to talk about this - and to remember the many other beautiful and important trees that live on.
Read more:
Photos from the field: capturing the grandeur and heartbreak of Tasmania's giant trees

The Sycamore Gap: four other significant tree destructions from history

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The felling of a single sycamore tree prompted an outpouring of grief last week.

Key Points:

The felling of a single sycamore tree prompted an outpouring of grief last week.
The tree – known as the “Sycamore Gap” – had been an iconic landmark and its location, Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, is a protected Unesco world heritage site.
Planted in the late 19th century, the roots of the Sycamore Gap tree reached deep into individual and collective memory.

1. The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury

After reaching Glastonbury in Somerset, he climbed Wearyall Hill, rested and thrust his staff into the ground.
Being rooted in the “holyest erth” was no guarantee that the holy thorn would be immune from attack, however.
But despite its chequered history, traditions associated with the holy thorn endure.
After the damage caused to the Holy Thorn in 1647, cuttings were taken from which a tree now growing in Glastonbury Abbey is believed to descend.

2. One Tree Hill

A similarly chequered history belongs to the 125-year-old Monterey Pine which sat on top One Tree Hill or Maungakiekie in Auckland, New Zealand.
The pine had been planted on the peak to replace a native tōtara tree, chopped down by a European settler.

3. Newton’s apple trees

There is a proliferation of “Newton’s apple” trees supposedly descended from the tree under which physicist Isaac Newton devised his law of universal gravity.
As a result, “Newton’s apple trees” are now found across the world, their roots connecting to create a library of human history and discovery.

4. The Shawshank Redemption white oak

In 2016, strong winds uprooted a majestic white oak in Mansfield, Ohio in the US, made famous by the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.
Film fans were distraught and souvenir-hunters rushed to the site, removing parts of the fallen tree.
Their branches and roots connect the brief history of humanity and the deeper history of our planet.

Sycamore Gap: what the long life of a single tree can tell us about centuries of change

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Plague, Food, Lichen, Sycamore Gap Tree, Farmer, Agriculture, Tree, Pollen, Sheep, Plant, Biodiversity, Climate change, Soil, Nature, Time, Social change, Aphid, Acer, Growth, Bird, Hunting, Animal husbandry

The tree’s dramatic and photogenic setting made it a culturally significant landmark, often used as a symbol of the surrounding Northumberland region.

Key Points:

The tree’s dramatic and photogenic setting made it a culturally significant landmark, often used as a symbol of the surrounding Northumberland region.
However, this single tree also symbolised our relationship with the landscape in this part of the world, both past and future.
Sycamores are also often found in soil with lots of different fungal species, and they’re an important habitat for lichens.

300 years of change

The sycamore needed this tough coloniser biology to survive its 300 year or so lifespan in Northumberland, where it endured significant environmental changes over the centuries.
Those summers became drier and brighter in the 20th century, until anthropogenic climate change really took hold and the tree recently withstood its hottest decade on record.
The landscape of Northumberland is also not fixed, but has seen significant alterations often driven by thousands of years of human economic and social change.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?